Less than 24 hours after a gunfire broke out at a Fourth of July celebration in Charlottesville’s Fifeville neighborhood, leaving five bystanders injured and at least two gunmen on the run, residents gathered to share their support with the victims, their families, the first responders and the community.
“Last night was the first time that this has ever happened in this area, so it took a lot of people by surprise,” Carmelita Wood, president of the Fifeville Neighborhood Association, told The Daily Progress on Saturday evening. “How could this happen in our neighborhood?”
A little after 11 p.m. Friday, Wood retired from watching the neighborhood’s July Fourth festivities and went inside her house on Orangedale Avenue, a street in the heart of the neighborhood. Not long after, she heard a series of loud noises.
“I thought it was the fireworks,” she said.
It was only after seeing people start to run past her house — and receiving text messages from concerned friends — that Wood realized tragedy had struck Fifeville.
Near Orangedale Avenue, rival gunmen fired multiple shots at one another. Five bystanders were injured, including a 9-year-old boy, an 11-year-old girl, a 17-year-old boy, an 18-year-old boy and a 52-year-old woman.
“None of them were the intended targets,” Charlottesville Police Chief Michael Kochis told The Daily Progress on Saturday morning. “They were caught in the crossfire between, we believe, two groups that were shooting at each other from across the street.”
Patrol units responded to multiple reports of gunfire around 11:23 p.m. but were initially hampered by heavy foot and vehicle traffic in the tightly packed residential neighborhood southwest of downtown Charlottesville. Kochis said the first responders had to leave their cruisers on nearby Prospect Avenue and reach the scene on foot.
Once there, officers and medics began triaging the injured and transporting them — in some cases carrying them — to locations where ambulances could reach them more easily.
As of Sunday morning, no suspects or motives had been identified, according to police spokesman Kyle Ervin.
All of the victims survived and are currently listed in stable condition.
No one was killed, but the Fifeville community is still mourning a loss — of peace, of security, of innocence.
“A lot of neighbors were shook up because they couldn’t understand what was going on when everybody was enjoying themselves, the kids were enjoying themselves,” said Wood. “It’s like, what are we teaching our children? That it’s not safe to watch fireworks? Not safe to celebrate a holiday?”
In the hours after the shooting, Wood got in touch with Sarah Mallpass, vice president of the neighborhood association, and Amanda Burns, vice chair of the Charlottesville City School Board, both of whom are also Fifeville residents.
They wanted to show their concern for the victims, gratitude for the first responders and support for their neighbors. So, the trio quickly organized a community gathering the following day at Abundant Life Ministries, a Christian nonprofit community development organization on Prospect Avenue, a street away from where the violence unfolded on the Fourth of July.
Under a tent in the organization’s front yard, a crowd of roughly 30 gathered for a couple of hours Saturday evening to sign cards for the victims and the first responders, connect with their neighbors and learn about local grief support groups.
The organizers invited a number of licensed counselors from the Women’s Initiative, Region Ten Community Services Board and Charlottesville Integrated Psychiatry to attend and make themselves available to those who either might have witnessed the shooting or are struggling with the effects of such violence so close to home.
“Our response to trauma is kind of mitigated by the reaction in our family and in our community, and when we go through difficult things, when we can come together and be together, then that just starts healing a lot faster,” Hunter Teets, a counselor with Charlottesville Integrated Psychiatry, told The Daily Progress. “It’s important to have people show up and know that they can reach out.”
Teets was involved in coordinating some of the citywide meetings held in the wake of the deadly Unite the Right rally-turned-riot in Charlottesville in 2017. He pointed out that traumatic events such as the ones on Aug. 12, 2017, and July 4, 2025, can leave invisible injuries — anxiety and stress — on an entire community. Some warning signs he recommended that people look out for include difficulty sleeping and feeling more irritable, numb or “just kind of on edge.”
Representatives of the BUCK Squad, a violence intervention program that seeks to rid the city of gun violence, also were present Saturday evening, as were Charlottesville Mayor Juandiego Wade and Del. Katrina Callsen, D-Albemarle.
Both of the public officials briefly addressed those gathered, calling on them to let their elected representatives know what they needed in the wake of the tragedy.
Wade told The Daily Progress he would be speaking with the police chief and city manager to learn as much as he could about the shooting and discuss how Charlottesville can tackle gun violence.
Burns had some ideas of her own, saying the city needs to hire full-time employees in its parks and recreation department solely focused on outreach and support programs for young people at risk of criminal activity.
“This is an all-in, hands-on effort by everyone, and I hope that this is a catalyst,” said Burns. “Sometimes it takes a really tragic event in the community to be the pinpoint that changes the dialogue and really moves people forward. I hope that’s where we’re at, and I hope that’s how we can move forward.”
Anyone who knows anything about the shooting last Friday is encouraged to contact the anonymous Crime Stoppers tip line at (434) 977-4000.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com