Many factors to blame for recent spate of local shootings, police chief says | News

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Finally, on May 24, a 9-year-old was seriously injured by a stray bullet while playing outside her Woodbridge apartment at about 6:40 pm with her 6-year-old sister and three other children. The bullet was fired by a 15-year-old boy who was apparently trying to shoot a person in a passing vehicle.

Together, the five shootings left four dead and three injured and made for one of the deadliest months of gun violence in Prince William County in recent memory. On Tuesday, June 7, Police Chief Peter Newsham briefed the board of supervisors about what police know about the shootings and the factors that may lie behind them.

Newsham explained that crimes that police deem aggravated assaults, which include everything from serious domestic assaults to stabbings and non-fatal shootings, have risen 40% from 2020 to 2021 a statistic he called most concerning. Still, Newsham noted that in most local incidents the victims and perpetrators are known to each other, meaning random victims remain rare.

Theres a very low likelihood that you will be just randomly assaulted by a stranger on the street. Thats a very rare occasion here in Prince William County, Newsham said.

Still, the recent spate of local gun violence and particularly the life-threatening and random shooting that left the 9-year-old girl fighting for her life prove Prince William County is not immune, Newsham said, to the gun violence plaguing the country.

Newsham ticked through the latest on the local shootings, sharing that police have arrested suspects in all five but are still searching for one suspect in connection with the May 15 fatal double homicide that left two 23-year-old men dead at the Woodbridge Station Apartments on Marys Way.

In three of the five incidents, juveniles were among those arrested. A 16-year-old is facing second-degree murder charges in the May 8 shooting that killed Michael Arthur, 18, of Montclair; and a 15-year-old was charged in the May 15 double-homicide that killed Malik Xavier Lamar Davis, of Woodbridge, and Christian Jamar Roberts, of Dumfries, both 23. That suspect was located after a 15-year-old was caught with a handgun at Freedom High School, Newsham said.

Another 15-year-old is facing aggravated malicious wounding and other charges in connection with the shooting of the 9-year-old girl, who Newsham said may have lifelong injuries.

She is not out of the woods. She might have some lifetime injuries, Newsham told the board. When you talk about random, this is a case where a stray bullet took out one of our children.

The factors behind the shootings, Newsham said, are both numerous and complex. They include the wanton use of firearms to solve disputes and what Newsham called a widespread availability of illegal weapons and a normalizing of violence.

The current culture of popular violent video games and song lyrics makes violence seem like its OK, and its not, he added.

The police chief then broke down both the context in which the shootings occurred, as well as surface-level issues and some of the root causes. Under context, Newsham listed instability caused by the ongoing pandemic, evolving expectations of the role of police and the fact that not all systems and services of the criminal justice system functioned during the pandemic.

Surface-level issues include petty arguments and slights, domestic violence and the availability of illegal guns. Root causes, Newsham said, likely include untreated trauma, a lack of opportunities and hope among young people, social influences normalizing violence and a segment of the juvenile population that has little regard for human life.

Newsham also pointed to several security issues at local apartment complexes that need attention, including a lack of security cameras and, in some cases, people other than the signed tenants living in apartments without the property managers knowledge.

Newsham said the problems cannot be solved by police alone and will require the attention of the entire community and especially of parents, nonprofits and faith communities working with youth and teens.

Supervisor Peter Candland, R-Gainesville, said he was struck by how many of the recent shootings involved kids with guns.

Thats something we need to focus on the adults in Prince William County and how that came to be so, Candland said.

Board of Supervisors Chair Ann Wheeler, D-At Large, emphasized that Prince William County remains a pretty safe community that nevertheless needs to address its challenges with gun violence.

These are tragic, tragic happenings in Prince William County, and there seems to have been a spate of them that happened recently that brings this to the forefront, Wheeler said.

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