Men get probation, community service for pelting boy with bricks

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GMI

Men get probation, community service for pelting boy with bricks

By Tyra Braden
Of The Morning Call

Two 18-year-old men admitted they tossed bricks at a 17-year-old because the boy wouldn't let them ride his motor scooter.

''This sounds like the kind of dispute you hear about in second grade,'' Northampton County Judge Stephen G. Baratta told Stephen Neely of 115 W. Central Ave., East Bangor, and Allan E. McGowan Jr. of 117 W. Main St., Pen Argyl. ''One kid on a tricycle and he won't let the others have a ride. I don't understand what you guys are doing with your lives. You're both high school graduates, but you're not acting very mature.''

McGowan and Neely pleaded guilty Thursday to simple assault. Baratta placed both on probation for two years and ordered that they perform 25 hours of community service.

He admonished McGowan and Neely to behave.

''I might put you in jail if you screw up on probation,'' he said. ''I don't want to see you again. That's my warning to you.''

According to court records, the 17-year-old, who was not identified, reported that Neely and McGowan on April 13 flung pieces of concrete at him as he rode his scooter in the 600 block of George Street in Pen Argyl. The boy, according to police, had a cut on his left thumb and another on his left thigh.

Neely told Baratta the two had used chunks of brick, not concrete, to pelt the boy.

Baratta asked why they committed the assault.

''Being stupid,'' McGowan said.

''We were just playing around,'' Neely said, adding that he didn't know the boy. McGowan said he did know the boy, through another friend.