HAMPTON ROADS, Va. – The seemingly endless gun violence impacted nearly all cities across Hampton Roads over the weekend.
There were three separate triple shootings, a double shooting resulting in a homicide, and a separate homicide in Hampton. In all, 12 people were shot.
The violence started in Suffolk on Saturday, Jan. 14 at 1 a.m. Police said three people were struck by gunfire near the High Tide Restaurant on Commerce Street. Two people were found at the scene with serious injuries from gunshot wounds. The third person went to the hospital.
Suffolk Police are also investigating a second triple shooting on Old College Drive. They said three women were shot following a fight that broke out around 12:30 Monday morning.
One man, who lives a few doors down from where the shooting happened, said he heard about four to five gunshots.
“It didn’t sound like a real gun at first,” said the neighbor who didn’t want to be identified. “Sounded [like] a muffled sound and later, pop, pop.”
Two of those women went to the hospital in critical condition. The third shooting victim walked across the highway on College Drive to Kickback Jacks looking for help.
“That’s sad. That’s sad,” he said. “I didn’t believe it.”
The third triple shooting happened in Portsmouth around 4:02 a.m. on Jan. 15. Police said three men were wounded in the 2200 block of Rodman Avenue.
News 3 Reporter Antoinette DelBel spoke with one woman named Rachel, who has lived on the street for nearly three years. She did not want to give her last name. She said the gunshots woke her up.
“It was about 3:30, 4:00 in the morning and I woke up to probably four or five gunshots,” Rachel said. “Then, heard people screaming and running across my yard, down the street and cars speeding off.”
Rachel lives near a club called House of Bertha Entertainment, where she believes the gunfire erupted.
“It was scary,” she said. “Didn’t really know what to do, or what was going on.”
Less than an hour later, there was a double shooting in Norfolk. Around 4:40 am on Sunday, police said two men were hospitalized with life-threatening injuries following a shooting at Colonial Ave. and W. 27th St.
Norfolk Police now confirm that one man, 37-year-old Omon Hamlin, has died from his injuries.
Hampton police are looking for the suspect they said shot and killed a man in a parking lot in the 1st block of County Street in the Phoebus area at 5:56 p.m. Sunday.
Police later identified the homicide victim as Joshua Scriven, 19, of Hampton.
“From Newport News, Hampton, Suffolk, in the last two weeks and especially this weekend, it has been very disheartening,” said Portsmouth community activist Barry Randall.
Randall believes the pandemic has caused a lot of pent-up frustration among many people, especially young people not knowing how to deal with their emotions.
“I do not believe that we have individuals waking up in the morning and saying, hey let me go see who I can kill today,” said Randall. “We have people that don’t know how to deal with conflict resolution; that don’t know how to respect one another, and deal with each other in that manner.”
Randall said there are some solutions to curbing gun violence, which include getting involved in your community. He said people can sit on a civic league or create a neighborhood watch group.
Meanwhile, police do not have any suspects in any of the shootings. They are not releasing any updates on the conditions of the shooting victims.
