‘Wheelchair Vigilante’ Gets 6-Month Term

A Woodland Hills man described by a prosecutor as “a gun-toting wheelchair vigilante” was sentenced Thursday to six months in jail for pulling a loaded pistol on two construction workers who had parked their pickup truck in a zone reserved for the disabled.

A Municipal Court jury last month found Brent L. Newsome, 36, guilty of seven counts of assault and weapons offenses after a trial in which Newsome’s version of events, as given on the witness stand, conflicted with his words, picked up by a police tape of the construction workers’ 911 emergency call.

“That’s what hung him,” said Deputy City Atty. Elijah Richardson. “The jury didn’t believe him. They didn’t like him. He came across as very arrogant and acted as if he was a privileged person.”

After the decision, Newsome objected to the “vigilante” description, describing himself instead as “the epitome of a crime victim,” saying he was left unable to walk when he was shot by a robber nine years ago.

Newsome described himself as an active member of Project Support for Spinal Cord Injuries, which he said helps the disabled poor obtain care and equipment. He is a volunteer at the Wheelchair Olympics, he said, and competes in wheelchair hockey and wheelchair rugby, and is a certified ski instructor for the disabled.

Judge Alice Altoon ordered Newsome to begin serving the sentence later this month and also placed him on three years probation. Newsome said he would appeal.

According to Richardson, the two victims, partners in a construction company, were returning home on the Ventura Freeway after working late. The older man pulled over in a shopping center at Ventura and Topanga Canyon boulevards in Woodland Hills to respond to a page. Richardson declined to name the two construction workers because they are crime victims, he said.

Even though the parking lot was virtually deserted, the man parked his pickup truck in the reserved handicapped space closest to a pay phone. While he was on the phone, Newsome wheeled up and began shouting, according to the prosecutor’s summary of trial testimony.

“He was angry and out looking for trouble,” Richardson said, adding that Newsome brandished a .380-caliber pistol and shouted that he would not tolerate their actions.

Later, Richardson said, Newsome hid his gun in a nearby bar, and the second construction worker dialed 911. When Newsome emerged from the bar, witnesses testified, he clapped his hands gleefully and said, “This is going to be a lot of fun.”

He then wrestled the phone from the other construction worker’s grip, and asked: “Hello? Is this 911? . . . This is the (disabled) guy who’s kicking the guys out of the parking space.” Richardson added that Newsome told police the men had thrown him from his wheelchair and refused to help him back in.

But his statement was disputed by the construction workers and a bartender who witnessed the fracas. They said Newsome fell from the chair while wrestling the construction worker for the phone.

The 911 tape portrayed Newsome--who had no vehicle with him that night and thus did not need a parking space--as more of a vigilante than a victim, Richardson said.

“I just get really frustrated,” Newsome told police. “I’ve been in a wheelchair nine years and these guys just stand around and lah-dee-dah. I just don’t appreciate people parking in handicapped zones.”

“I was not in a vehicle at the time,” Newsome agreed Thursday, but another disabled person “could have been.”