A man was in critical condition on Wednesday after he was shot inside a dark pickup truck traveling in Charlottesville’s 10th and Page neighborhood.
After gunfire pierced the truck, the vehicle crashed into a parked car in the 900 block of Page Street, where police said the man was found and then moved to University of Virginia Medical Center.
The Charlottesville Police Department said it responded to the scene just after 3:40 p.m. on Wednesday.
“We found a Black male in his early 20s suffering from a gunshot wound inside the vehicle,” Police Chief Michael Kochis told The Daily Progress at the scene. “He was transported to UVA Medical Center in critical condition.”
Police had made no arrests as of Wednesday evening. Kochis said the department was seeking the public’s assistance in identifying the shooter.
As police officers processed the scene on Page Street Wednesday afternoon, a pair of white athletic shoes and glass from the driver-side window lay on the asphalt of Page Street.
Crossing guard Jaime Wayne said she had just finished her shift at Buford Middle School and was driving downhill on 10th Street and was about to turn right on Page when she heard the crash.
“It was just a loud boom,” Wayne told The Daily Progress. “And when I turned in, I saw it, and I immediately jumped out and tried to help, but there wasn’t anything I could do.”
She said she never heard a gunshot nor did she see a wound on the man’s body.
“I tried to save him, but he was already lifeless,” said Wayne. “He was changing colors while I was there, and I couldn’t feel a pulse at all.”
She said the paramedics later reported they found a pulse.
“Hopefully, they can resuscitate him,” she said. “Prayers to his family and him.”
Wayne said another person who was also in the truck, a young man, appeared to have broken his leg in the crash and identified the more seriously injured man as his brother.
“He just kept screaming, ‘It’s all my fault. I brought him into this. He’s a good kid. He goes to school,’” Wayne recounted.
Wayne, who lives in Stanardsville, said she was driving some students home, something that’s not part of her crossing guard job.
“I really don’t like to see kids walking,” she explained, “because you never know what’s going to happen – especially on this side of town.”
Wednesday’s incident marks the second shooting in less than 24 hours in the Charlottesville area. A shooting just south of city limits at an apartment complex in Albemarle County on Tuesday night left one man dead.
The Page Street shooting on Wednesday marks the 22nd injury by gunfire in the city of Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County since September, according to a Daily Progress tally. The county shooting on Tuesday marks the 10th death by gunfire in the area.
Bryan Page, the assistant director of the B.U.C.K. Squad, a group dedicated to removing gun violence from the streets of Charlottesville, arrived on the scene around the same time as police and said he heard gunshots in the distance even as paramedics were treating the wounded men.
“The youth, the kids, they don’t have anything to do but play with guns,” Page said. “We need the whole community to help us.”
Police urge anyone with any information on either shooting to contact the Crime Stoppers tip line at (434) 977-4000.
Daily Progress photographer Mike Kropf contributed to this story.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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