Defendant’s Lawyer: Stabbing a ‘Freak Accident’ : Crime: Attorney says her client and his friends did not intend to harm anyone in incident at San Clemente beachside park. The teen-age victim remains comatose.

The attorney for one of six defendants charged in the attack in which San Clemente High School student Steve Woods was stabbed through the skull with a metal rod said Wednesday the injury was the result of a “terrible freak accident,” and there was no intent by her client or his friends to harm anyone.

“I don’t think anyone had any kind of intent to really harm anyone in any serious way,” said Shirley MacDonald, an Orange lawyer representing a 17-year-old unidentified juvenile charged in the case.

“It’s a tragedy for everybody,” she said. “My client has never been in trouble before. He’s tried to get by the best he can.”

MacDonald also said the Orange County district attorney’s office has indicated it will try to convince a judge that the four juveniles in the case should be tried as adults.

According to a police report on the Friday night attack, which grew out of a fistfight in the Calafia Beach County Park parking lot in San Clemente, the violence may have been sparked by an altercation a day earlier between one of Woods’ companions and one of the six defendants.

After the attack that left Woods, 17, in a coma, suspects in the case told investigators that the dispute began when one suspect recognized a companion of Woods’ as someone who had made an obscene gesture at him the day before.

According to statements in the records, a 17-year-old member of the San Clemente Varrio Chico gang told others with him that night that he was angry because Woods’ friend had given him “the finger” near San Clemente High School.

After recognizing the young man with a group of others in the parking lot Friday night, the suspect punched him, sparking the melee that resulted in Woods’ injury, according to the police report.

Two adults and four teen-agers have been charged in connection with the attack. Woods, who was speared through the head with the metal rod of a paint roller, remained comatose and in critical condition Wednesday with no evidence of improvement, according to surgeons at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center.

Dr. Bruce Moffatt, the neurosurgeon who removed the rod from Woods’ skull, has said he holds out little hope for the teen’s survival.

Juan Enriquez Alcocer, 20, and Arturo Villalobos, 20, both of San Clemente, were charged Tuesday with six counts of felony assault and one count of throwing a projectile at a moving vehicle.

Four juveniles were also charged Tuesday with the same seven felony counts. A detention hearing for the juvenile suspects was scheduled for Wednesday but was continued until Tuesday, according to prosecutor Doug Woodsmall.

If convicted, Alcocer and Villalobos could serve a maximum of eight years; the juveniles could face detainment in a juvenile facility until age 25.

Orange County sheriff’s deputies had arrested the six young men and three other suspects on suspicion of attempted murder. Two adults and one juvenile were later released because of insufficient evidence.

Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi said Wednesday that he would not rule out additional charges or arrests in the days to come.

Capizzi also took issue with a headline in Wednesday’s editions of The Times, which said charges had been “reduced” in the case.

Although the article made clear that charges actually had been filed that day for the first time, Capizzi said the timing of the mistaken headline could not have been worse, because it came on the same day that verdicts in the Reginald O. Denny beating trial were announced.

“In view of the events in Los Angeles and the concern there with the charges that have now been resolved in the Denny case . . . to erroneously create the impression that there’s been a reduction in the charges here is to do us and the public and specifically the people of San Clemente a disservice,” Capizzi said.

Capizzi said his office had fielded nearly 60 calls Wednesday from people angry or concerned about the impression that charges were reduced in Woods’ case.

Today’s edition of The Times contains a correction of the headline.

The police report offered a more detailed picture than before of the chaotic scene in the parking lot, where two groups of young people converged late Friday night.

Woods’ companions, who arrived in four cars, told investigators they left in a frantic procession after someone in their group approached another vehicle, thinking he recognized a friend, only to be punched in the face after words were exchanged.

He drove back to his friends and warned them to leave quickly because the other group, which included members and associates of the Varrio Chico gang, appeared to want a fight, according to the report.

Several of the suspects admitted in the report to throwing bottles, sticks and other objects at the vehicles. Villalobos said he threw a paint roller at the fourth vehicle in line, which was not the one carrying Woods. A 17-year-old admitted having thrown a metal bar at the first vehicle, in which Woods was riding.

Many of the defendants also maintained that the cars swerved toward them or tried to run them over on their way out of the parking lot.