An officer checks the VIN of a vehicle identified as the suspect vehicle in a pursuit in Batavia. The plates may have been switched on the vehicle. The operator fled from the vehicle after stopping in a driveway on Summit Street, across the street from St. Joe's. He apparently lost control trying to negotiate the turn from East Main onto Summit. Photo by Howard Owens.
A pursuit that started on the Southside of Batavia is now a foot chase in the area of Summit Street.
The vehicle may have struck a building on Jackson Street, and the suspect continued to Jackson, South Jackson, Maple, East Main, and now Summit.
The suspect, described as a black male with a ball cap is now west on Washington Avenue.
UPDATE 12:36 p.m.: The subject is also said to be wearing a plaid-style jacket.
UPDATE 1:43 a.m.: The search is ongoing, involving patrols from Batavia PD and the Sheriff's Office. There is nobody available on scene who can provide an update about the case. Communication has been moved to a secure channel. So, it will be unlikely we can provide any further updates tonight. The search is generally in the area of Summit and Washington.
Photo showing the skid marks from the vehicle as a result of the operator apparently losing control. Photo by Howard Owens.
The Oakfield-Alabama/Elba Aggies picked up a win on Saturday, beating Geneseo 31-0.
OAE stats:
QB/DL Austin Pangrazio - 21 Carries, 134 Yards, four TDs., three Tackles, one TFL, one Fumble Recovery
RB Avery Watterson - 15 Carries, 128 Yards, one TD
LB Ashton Bezon - 10 Tackles, five TFLs, one Sack, one Forced Fumble
DL Angelo Penna - nine Tackles, three TFLs
"It's good to get one back in the W column," said Head Coach Tyler Winter. "These boys have been working hard. I'm happy they got to enjoy the fruits of their labor. However, we know we need to remain grounded and stay the course. Class D is wide open this year. We keep saying, 'The team in our class who has the best October is going to really like their November.' We'll continue to grow and prepare for the next challenge."
The Pembroke Dragons continue to dominate other eight-man squads, picking up their sixth win against no defeats on Friday by beating Allegany-Limestone (Section VI), 68-22.
Coach Brandon Ricci credits the blocking of Ben Steinberg, Jayden Mast, Jayden Bridge, Madden Perry, JJ Gabbey, Octavius Martin and Hayden Williams with helping the Dragons amass 400 yards of total offense on just 27 plays.
Tyson Totten ran for 275 yards and six touchdowns on 19 carries. He also added a punt return for a touchdown.
Fullback Caleb Felski had 100 yards rushing and one touchdown on seven carries.
Quarterback Vijay Dhanda Finished the scoring on his lone carry for a 50-yard touchdown.
Defensively the Dragons were led by linebacker Vijay Dhanda with 11 tackles. Caleb Felski added nine tackles of his own, while Tyson had six and an interception that he took 80 yards back for a score.
The Blue Devils improved to 8-4 with a 2-0 win over Eastridge on Friday in Boys Soccer.
Head Coach Graham Halpin said it was a physical and spirited performance by Batavia.
Quintin Cummings, assisted by Owen Halpin, scored a first-half goal. The second goal for Batavia came in the second half when Ryan Bohn scored with a header off a corner kick by Finn Halpin.
Halpin highlighted The defensive line of Trevor Tryon, Will Fulton, Brandon Currier, Trey Tryon, and Darius Wahl, as well as goalkeeper Ben Stone for the shutout of Eastridge.
York/Pavilion beat Notre Dame 25-18 in a Thursday Night football game.
For Notre Dame, Jay Antinore was 7-13 passing for 112 yards and TD with one interception. He also ran for 70 yards on 17 carries and scored a touchdown on the ground.
Ryan Fitzpatrick had five receptions for 96 yards and a TD.
For York/Pavilion, Parker Bonefede was 13-20 passing for 189 yards and two touchdowns. He ran seven times for 21 yards and two TDs.
Tyler Brady and Jacob Pangrazio each had a TD reception.
Reader-submitted photo of a police car damaged by a fleeing suspect during a high-speed chase that went down Holland Avenue, Batavia.
In a pursuit that reportedly started with the theft of merchandise from Ulta Beauty, a Batavia PD patrol car was struck and damaged on Holland Avenue at around 5 p.m. on Friday.
The suspect vehicle was later spotted on Park Road and was headed toward the Thruway.
Police communications are on a secure channel, and Batavia PD has yet to release further information.
Engineer Michael Metzger and Developer Michael Schmidt at the Sept. 27 Town of Pembroke Planning Board meeting. Photo by Howard Owens.
It's more expensive to build an apartment complex in Pembroke than locations to the town's immediate west, according to developer Mike Schmidt, and what he can charge for rent in Pembroke is substantially less than in just about any part of Erie County.
So he wouldn't build in Pembroke if not for the tax abatements he sought and could receive from the Genesee County Economic Development Center.
On Thursday, the GCEDC board of directors voted to move the proposed incentive package for Countryside Apartments LLC to a public hearing at a date and time yet to be scheduled in the Town of Pembroke.
If approved by the board after the hearing, Schmidt, who is planning to invest $15.65 million to build a complex that could eventually contain 96 market-rate apartments -- would receive a sales tax exemption on building materials worth $739,200, a property tax abatement of $2 million, and a mortgage tax abatement of $130,000.
The location is at 8900 Alleghany Road, Pembroke, which is about halfway between Cohocton Road and Brickhouse Corners. Immediately to the south of the currently wooded 8.2-acre lot is a farm field and a long-abandoned gas station. A single-family home is on the land to the north. The property is zoned limited commercial and agricultural-residential.
The Batavian interviewed Schmidt on Friday because, at a Town of Pembroke Planning Board meeting on Sept 27, it sounded like Schmidt said he was getting no government assistance for the project -- as in, no government subsidies.
At the meeting that night, some residents raised the specter of Ellicott Station and how the project seemed to go from market-rate apartments to low-income housing once state and federal agencies got involved, and Schmidt replied that "They (Savarino Companies) already had all the agencies lined up to work with them. We are here alone. Mike's (Metzger) my engineer. We have no intention of doing that. I can put that into writing. We certainly aren't going to be looking for any state financial aid or any type of anything from the government to help us. (emphasis added)"
Today, Schmidt said he felt bad that maybe he didn't communicate as clearly as he would like. He called himself a straight-shooter and said that he certainly didn't mean to mislead anybody. In his mind, he was speaking purely in the context of seeing the kind of government assistance that comes from Housing and Urban Development or the state Office of Homes and Community Renewal -- assistance that comes with strings attached on the kind of housing you must develop.
The GCEDC assistance has no such income requirements.
It perhaps should be noted, too, that GCEDC is not technically a government agency. It is a public benefit corporation, which places it somewhere between being a government agency -- created through legislation -- and a standard non-profit. However, IDAs, such as GCEDC, are given the authority to grant relief from certain taxes levied by state and local government bodies.
Schmidt said no one with GCEDC or any government agency has approached him about turning his complex into subsidized housing.
"It's not going to happen on this project," he reiterated.
He said that was the only point he was trying to make to the planning board and residents in attendance, and he's sorry if it came across as forgoing all assistance.
"My intention is to do my level best to be as clear as I can with my answers," Schmidt said.
He said he understands that what has happened with Ellicott Station has made people more distrustful of developers. He said he's followed the project closely and that by his count, Savarino Companies has a dozen different government agencies involved in the project. That isn't the case with his project, he said.
He said he understands that people are concerned about a "bait and switch."
"That (Ellicott Station) hasn't been real helpful to me," Schmidt said. "The trust level that is normally there between a developer and a town board and a town planning board has kind of been breached."
When asked if his statement that he wasn't seeking assistance might be seen as misleading and leads to further distrust of developers, Schmidt said he disagreed with the idea that he is taking anything from anybody.
He called it a "mischaracterization."
Nobody is handing him money, he said. He's financing the entire project himself. However, the tax breaks are the only way to make the project viable because of the disparities in expenses and revenues between Genesee County and Erie County.
"There is no way this project could move forward without the help," Schmidt said. "Without the help, these projects and projects like it won't happen."
An explanation of the abatements: If nothing is built, there is no sales tax to charge on materials not sold, so the argument from IDA supporters is that it isn't money spent, and the same with the mortgage tax. On the property tax abatement, in the form of a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes, meaning the developer pays some fees to local jurisdictions), the abatement is only the portion of the tax increase caused by the increase in assessed value that development creates, so if there's no development, there is no increase in assessed value, and no new taxes to forgive, and no increase in tax revenue when the PILOT ends.
Schmidt listed several Erie County communities where he could get $800 a month more in rent for the same apartments he's planning in Pembroke, where he'll charge from $1,400 a month to $1,700 a month.
And because there are fewer qualified contractors who will take on projects in Pembroke, and it costs more to truck some material to Pembroke, his expenses are higher to build in Pembroke than in other communities.
Additionally, the cost of construction in recent years has gone up substantially in the past few years, he said. Not counting site work, it costs $200 a foot to build an apartment complex, he said.
Financial incentives are the only way he can keep rents affordable.
Asked about getting tax breaks not available to existing landlords in the area, he said his costs are substantially higher than any landlord buying existing buildings.
"When you're buying apartments in an area where you're paying a fraction of the amount per unit than it costs to build new, that's a real benefit to that landlord," Schmidt said. "When I build new units at a higher rental price, those landlords are able to raise their rents, and with higher rents can still say, 'look at what a bargain you're getting from me.'"
Genesee County, in general, and Pembroke in particular, needs more housing, Schmidt noted, especially in light of all the new development coming in -- Plug Power and Edwards Vacuum at WNY STAMP, multiple new projects at Exit 48A, and new mixed-use developments at Brickhouse Corners.
Because of that, Schmidt believes his project will be successful and fill up quickly, though he recognizes there are no guarantees, which is why he's taking a phased approach to building the complex -- four separate buildings of 24 apartment units each. He's not going to build any units beyond the first phase if it turns out there is no demand, or he will wait for the demand to grow, which could take years.
"I don't know how big the demand will be," Schmidt said. "I can't say. I know it's not a field of dreams where I can build 10,000 units, and they will be full. That's not it. But I'm confident this will be a successful project."
He also thinks he will fill the units with tenants that current Pembroke residents will appreciate as neighbors. And that his tenants will be the kind people who not only make a positive contribution to the community but they will also contribute economically, which benefits all business and property owners
"As I said at the meeting, having more people who are qualified, hardworking people with good jobs drives the value up of every property," Schmidt said. "Undoubtedly."
Who rents apartments? Schmidt said it's people who don't want the responsibility of owning a home.
"A house is permanent," Schmidt said. "It means you think you're going to stay in the area. You know you have a secure job. You want to be certain that you want to stay in a community. You like the schools. An apartment is a stepping stone into that area."
An apartment dweller doesn't have to worry about putting on a new $18,000 roof, or fixing the dishwasher when it's broken, or plowing the snow, or tree removal after a storm, or spending $300 plus labor on a new sump pump.
"Apartment living is very simple living," Schmidt said. "When you pay rent, you have an all-in number. For $400 a week, you know every expense is covered. People like that.”
He then explained, "I know a guy who sold a $500,000 house and is moving into an apartment -- not senior housing but into a $2,300-a-month apartment. You might say he's insane, but he doesn't want to do snow removal. He doesn't want to mow a lawn any more. He wants to be able to go and come as he pleases."
Schmidt admitted, "Hey, I'm a landlord," so of course, he's bullish on apartments, but he sees the demand. A fellow landlord in Erie County rents his units for $2,600 a month.
"You might think, 'Who the heck is going to pay that,'" Schmidt said. "He has a waiting list."
He added, "New people are coming. They just will be. I don't know how many jobs they're projecting over the next 10 years, but if the projections are just half right, there will be a lot of need for housing."
But meeting the growing local need for more roofs to put over the heads of more people is only possible, he said, through the financial assistance of an agency like GCEDC.
"Housing is needed in the area, so how are you going to get it, to get investments from people like me, who would normally invest in other parts of the WNY region, more toward Buffalo, if you're not going to work with them and help them, without some sort of financial incentive," Schmidt said.
Rendering of a 24-unit apartment building proposed for Route 77 in Pembroke, courtesy of Developer Mike Schmidt.
For the second year on Tuesday, Batavia High School's volleyball teams, varsity and JV, hosted a "pink game" to raise money in support of Genesee Cancer Assistance.
The teams raised $2,200.
Statement provided by Sarah Gahagan:
Nick Grasso graciously accepted this donation on behalf of Genesee Cancer Assistance. He reminded all spectators of how important it is to help out locally whenever possible. He reminded the spectators how expensive travel, treatment and other things people battling this disease need on a daily basis and how grateful our local recipients are to have events like this in their honor.
We would like to thank all of our local sponsors for donating baskets to support our team.
Western Regional Off Track Betting (WROTB) President and CEO Henry Wojtaszek presented representatives from the Breast Cancer Coalition of Rochester (BCCR) with a check for $23,000 to help those who been affected by breast or gynecologic cancer.
On Aug. 18, a dinner and night at the races fundraiser with raffles to benefit the BCCR was held inside the Batavia Downs Clubhouse. Businesses and donors located in Western NY sponsored several races that night. Some monies came from the local harness racing community as some owners, trainers and drivers donated all or a portion of their earnings from the night to the BCCR. Through the dinner, donations, raffles and auctions for items, the event raised $23,000
“We are honored to once again host this event that raises awareness and funds for the BCCR,” Wojtaszek said. “Their efforts fund research and do so much more. The BCCR holds educational and support events to help raise awareness. They work hard to make sure that members of the community can come together to learn and receive support. The BCCR advocates for legislation at the local, state, and national levels to help further along funding in the search for a cure. This year the event held onsite was a success due to the continued hard work of their staff and ours.”
"On behalf of the Breast Cancer Coalition, we are deeply grateful for the astonishing effort Batavia Downs shows year after year. Of course, we appreciate all gifts to our organization, but it is particularly gratifying to have their support because they have never wavered,” said Holly Anderson, President and Executive Director of the Breast Cancer Coalition. “They connect with us well beyond October’s “Breast Cancer Awareness Month” and refer friends and family to our programs throughout the year. Moreover, they understand how difficult it is for a community-based organization to raise the critical funds necessary to offer our outstanding programs and services to grateful survivors across Central and Western New York. We can continue to serve our community because of Batavia Downs’ steadfast and ongoing partnership.”
Three trucks were spotted at about 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning at the Ellicott Station construction project, which has stalled after developer Savarino Companies announced it was going out of business six weeks ago.
A supervisor said a work crew was on the roof completing a project. He said the work was being done because it needed to be completed and not in response to building code citations issued by the city, which The Batavian first reported about this morning.
At 11 a.m., the workers were seen departing the construction site.
There's also recently been some weed removal on the property.
After one resident of College Village in Batavia accused another resident Sept. 24 of sending a message via Facebook to her aunt, she and two other young women allegedly jumped the female victim.
The victim reported sustaining a head injury and bruised ribs.
The three suspects were all charged with assault in the second degree.
Indya Denira Ford
According to a deposition provided Deputy Jonathan Dimmig, who investigated the case with Deputy Nicholas Chamoun, the victim was in her dorm room at 8:05 p.m. on Sept. 24 when her roommate told her somebody was at the front door to see her.
According to police documents, the three women at the door were Diantha Danish Diarha Quandt, 19, whom the victim said she only knows as "DiDi," and Indya Denira Ford, 22, and Evedshardeny Sealliah Domacasse, 18.
All three were charged following an investigation and all three reportedly reside at College Village.
Ford claims the victim started the fight and that she and Domacasse tried to break it up.
Evedshardeny Sealliah Domacasse
The victim told Dimmig that she stepped outside, at the request of Quandt, to talk. She said her statement, "DiDi kept asking me if I sent something to her aunt through Facebook. I told her no and that I didn't understand her."
At that point, the victim's roommate came out of the dorm room and the victim said she told her roommate that everything was fine and she could go back in side.
"The girls kept asking me if I sent DiDi's aunt messages, which denied," the victim stated.
A third person reportedly told DiDi that the victim had contacted her aunt and Quandt got that person on a speaker phone and that person stated the victim did contact Quandt's aunt.
Quandt then, according to the statement, set her phone and other items on the window sill near where they were standing.
"I put my hands in my head," she said. "While I had my head in my hands, I was able to see DiDi raise her arm as though she was going to hit me. I then felt something hit the back of my head repeatedly. When I felt the first hit, I dropped to my knees and shielded my head and neck. I felt multiple people kicking me and pulling my hair. I stayed quiet and didn't fight back. I began to feel dizzy and then (the roommate) came back out and began to push the girls off me."
She continued, "All three girls began laughing and kicking my phone and other property."
That night, she went to ER at UMMC to get evaluated for a continuous headache, dizziness, and nausea.
She was told she sustained a closed head injury and bruised ribs.
After she returned home, she tried to sleep in a temporary dorm room but when she laid down, she realized she couldn't lay her head on her left side due to pain in her left ear and neck.
"The following day, my body felt sore all over. I still had a headache, and I was still suffering from nausea and dizziness," she wrote.
According to police documents, Ford told Dimmig that she and her friends were playing Uno when "DiDi" looked at her phone and started crying and ran out the door. She and Domacasse followed her, according to the statement. She said they tried to calm her down.
"She just kept saying, 'I wanna have a conversation with her,'" according to the document.
Ford reportedly told Dimmig that Quandt and the victim were talking and that for "30 seconds I was froze," and then, the victim, she said, jumped at Quandt.
"In a blink of an eye, they were fighting."
She claimed that she and Domacasse tried to break up the fight.
Quandt, Domacasse, and Ford were arrested the following day. All three were arraigned and ordered held on bail.
Gerald Mead, who has more than 1,700 works of art by Western New York Artists, with a piece by photographer Cindy Sherman. Sherman is portraying Mrs. Claus in a version of a piece commissioned by New Yorker Magazine for a cover. Photo by Howard Owens.
Some of her works have sold for millions, setting records for photographic prints.
That notoriety helps make Sherman interesting to Gerald Mead, who has acquired 23 of her pictures, but that's only, at best, half the reason he collects her work. Mead's interest in Sherman is both parochial and personal. Sherman and Mead both attended Buffalo State University (though about a decade apart), and Mead's passion and specialty is collecting the works of Western New York artists.
He has more than 1,700 pieces in his collection.
"She's really kind of an icon in Buffalo," Mead said. "Her name is known far and wide as one of the most significant photographers, and she has that connection to Western New York. I was really familiar with her whole body of work, and because I was a curator at the Burchfield Penny, we had her works in our collection. It just became a special interest of mine when I first started collecting."
Over the next six weeks, art lovers from the area won't need to travel to London, Paris, Venice, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, or even Buffalo, to see examples of Sherman's work. They can just take a little trip to GO ART! at 201 East Main St., Batavia, to see a portion of Mead's collection on display.
The show's run starts today (Wednesday) and concludes on Nov. 25, with an opening reception from 5 to 8 p.m. on Oct. 19.
The show is a real coup for GO ART! said Mary Jo Whitman, education/SCR director for the arts council. She wrote her master's thesis on Sherman.
"I'm very excited to get to know a lot of people in this area who don't always get to travel out to the bigger museums to see this kind of work will get to see it," Whitman said. "It's exciting to be able to bring these works to people, essentially."
Whitman said Sherman's work is important to her because it speaks to her in a personal way, because in her work, Sherman presents herself as a chameleon, taking on different roles as the main subject of most of her photos.
Sherman started her rise in prominence with what is still probably her most famous body of work, Untitled Film Stills.
The series was created mostly between 1977 and 1980, mostly in New York City, with the city as a backdrop, or in her apartment. The black and white prints mimic the kind of studio publicity shots that were once produced for film noir or French avante-garde movies. Sherman conceived of the shots -- only a few directly inspired by actual movies -- created the costumes, did her own makeup, and created the pose that seemed to capture the movie's star at a pivotal plot point.
"I felt this immediate connection with her," Whitman said. "I think it's really this idea of, you know, the constructed identity that you can be so many different people. You're in social situations, you're in professional situations, and that kind of really dictates who you are at that moment and really how many different people you can be. I know, for myself, I feel that way. I grew up in a very small town as a country girl, and I went on to be an artist, I can be a crazy hippie at times, and I can be in galleries like this as the pretentious curator. So I play a lot of different roles. I think that I just kind of felt a kinship with her after seeing her work.
After Untitled Film Stills, Sherman moved on to other series that, again, feature her in various roles and characters, such as Fairy Tales, Disasters, Centerfolds, History Portraits, Clowns, and most recently, Instagram Portraits
Mead, whose collection started with "Letraset Art Sheet #1," a collage Sherman made from British clip art in 1966, which he won as a door prize at an afterparty in 1995 for the 20th Anniversary of Hallwalls Contemporary Art Gallery (which Sherman co-founded while at Buffalo State), said his goal has been to collect something of Sherman's from each of her eras and from each decade of her career.
"I've been able to do that over the course of 35 years," Mead said.
Sherman's work appeals to him, Mead said, for that same chameleon character that inspired Whitman to study her work.
"She's used herself as the subject, but she's converted and transformed herself into personalities, personas, characters," Mead said. "She doesn't consider them portraits of people generally because she's the subject of all of them. I think it can be fascinating to see how a person can use their own appearance and alter it to have such a wide spectrum of, again, personalities, personas characters."
Also, Mead said, each photo tells a story that also allows the viewer to help fill in the narrative.
"What's interesting about her work, too, is that it's meant to sort of evoke a response or a reaction because the person in it -- they're all actors or actresses, right? Is just being caught mid-performance. So when you're looking at it, you have to get out it, 'what happened before? What's going to happen right after?' She's telling the story. The interesting thing is, a lot of times, I think people sometimes look to see what the title is to figure out what exactly is going on, but they're all untitled. She intentionally has no title on them because she wants you to bring your own understanding and your own kind of reaction to it."
It's that nuance of story and character that is one reason people should come to see Sherman's work while its on display at GO ART!, Whitman said.
"It's just really cool," Whitman said. "She's got a great idea that's really unique. I mean, she plays all the roles. She is the artist. She's the model. She's the makeup artist. She's creating the work all based on herself. There's all these different guises that she has. It's really fascinating when you kind of break it down to what it took to make each individual work. You're gonna come in, and you're gonna see what looks like a portrait to you, but when you kind of break it down, like okay, this is her in every single portrait, and you will be able to tell it's the same person. So, it's just impressive."
Mary Jo Whitman and Gerald Mead hanging one of Cindy Sherman's photos in a gallery at GO ART! Photo by Howard Owens.
On the back of the Mrs. Claus photo by Cindy Sherman is the New York Times cover version of the picture, which is a bit more anodyne than the photo Sherman released as a print for the general public to purchase. "She's not all bloated and blushed," Mead said of the cover version. "That was the more tame version they used for the magazine. This (the print Mead has in his collection) is the one she preferred. This is described as an unlimited edition. You could actually purchase it from -- we're talking back in 1990 -- you could purchase it from her gallery. When it was produced, it was only $100. Eventually, it stopped. You know, they didn't continue to produce it, but she wanted it available because everybody had seen it on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. She wanted it to be accessible and for people to be able to afford and have something of hers." The back of the framed print also contains cards from the various galleries where it has been displayed. Photo by Howard Owens
Teressa Hirsch, playing Juror #7, doesn't hide her anger after Juror #8 refuses to join the other 11 jurors for a quick unanimous guilty verdict in the Batavia Players presentation of 12 Angry Jurors. Photo by Howard Owens.
A simple plot -- 12 ordinary people deliberating the guilt or innocence of a young man accused of murder -- became a riveting drama on Sept. 20, 1954, when it first aired on CBS's Studio One.
In the 1950s, women couldn't serve on juries, so the title was to the point: 12 Angry Men.
A lot has changed over the past seven decades. Women have been able, for example, to serve on juries for decades, so now the play is called 12 Angry Jurors (12 Angry Men was also an award-winning movie in 1957 starring Henry Fonda).
And a lot hasn't changed. Not all is equal just yet. Society is still beset by prejudices, and people still have biases and personal histories that color their views of events.
So juries can still sometimes find it hard to agree on a verdict.
That's why the play originally written by Reginald Rose is still performed all over the country, is taught in schools, and is the subject of scholarship.
"It's still relevant," said Director Kristy Walter. "It's like one of those timeless plays that speaks to justice, it speaks to humanity, it speaks to people's prejudices and biases. And that's, I think, what makes it so compelling because when you watch the play, you see yourself in those characters. So I think that's what makes it worth seeing."
The first Batavia Players performance is at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, followed by 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, and 2:30 p.m. on Sunday.
The play begins with an off-stage charge from a judge in a murder trial: The jury must reach a unanimous verdict.
Once in the jury room, Juror #7 (the jurors are only identified by their numbers until the close of the play), played by Teressa Hirsch, says, “Yeah, lets vote. Who knows, maybe we can all just go home.”
She has someplace else to be, she reveals.
And the vote? It's 11-1. Not unanimous.
The lone holdout, Juror #8, played by Steven Coburn, confesses, “It's not easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.”
The jury decides it's up to them to convince him why they are right -- that the young man on trial stabbed his abusive father and killed him. A guilty verdict would send the kid, from an impoverished background, to the electric chair.
The disagreements erupt for the jurors to confront their own morals and values, their own histories and beliefs.
You can probably guess the resolution -- if you've never caught the movie on late-night TV -- or better, no matter how well you know the story, you can join Batavia Players at 56 Main Theater this weekend to see how it plays out. The play holds up over decades of changing cultural norms and multiple viewings.
Photo by Howard Owens.
Photo by Howard Owens.
Photo by Howard Owens.
Steven Coburn, as Juror #8, cast the lone "not guilty" vote at the start of Batavia Players production of 12 Angry Jurors. Photo by Howard Owens.
Notre Dame took a five-set match from Oakfield-Alabama in Girls Volleyball on Monday.
The games were scored:
25-18
19-25
25-17
25-27
15-9
Stats for the Irish: Kaitlin Kratz had nine kills, Loretta Sorochty, 26 assists, one kill, one block, three aces and five digs, CJ Campagna, six kills, four blocks, two aces and two digs.
For the Hornets, Jessica Sosnowski. three aces, 10 digs and 17 assists, Cara Williams, two aces, five kills, 19 digs and one assist, Sayde Bush, four aces, fiver kills and 15 digs.
