Matthew Bowers
The Virginian-Pilot
©
NORFOLK
Vice Mayor Anthony L. Burfoot plans to ask the City Council today to shut down the Waterside festival marketplace or move aggressively to clean up problems he sees with security at the riverfront entertainment facility.
He spoke after a fatal weekend shooting occurred in the parking garage across the street, frequented by Waterside customers.
Burfoot said police are doing all they can but said some bar owners haven't kept up security and continue to serve drinks to inebriated customers.
"You can put all the police you want in the parking garage, but if we don't make the right decisions that allow Waterside to be safe, then it won't help," Burfoot said. "It's ridiculous some nights, and as the weather gets warmer, it's going to get worse."
A 26-year-old Chesapeake man died early Sunday morning after a fender-bender in the garage turned into a confrontation and shooting that also seriously wounded another man. That man's family said the pair had been to Waterside. Police arrested a suspect in the garage.
The man killed, Juan Carlos Ovalle-Peralta, from the Dominican Republic, had only recently become a United States citizen. He worked as a mechanic.
Early Thursday morning, an apparent street robbery blocks away fatally wounded a Suffolk man. A responding bicycle patrolman exchanged gunfire with and killed one of two suspects and arrested the other.
City leaders said they saw no patterns in the shootings, no marked increase in downtown crime, and sufficient police coverage. "Other than the closeness in time, I don't see a connection between these incidents," Mayor Paul Fraim said.
Lane Brown, Waterside's general manager, said that for the past two months he has employed 10 off-duty police officers, uniformed and armed, late on Friday and Saturday nights, five of them replacing five unarmed security guards after 9:30 p.m. He said he has heard few complaints about security, and most problems such as fights occur outside, on the street.
Police in the past year received 258 calls for service from Waterside, and 74 more for the parking deck, Sgt. Major Jim Robertson said. Police regularly patrol the garage area, and officers were inside early Sunday when the shooting occurred, but on a different floor.
More details emerged Monday about the incident that began about 2 a.m. Sunday on the fourth level of the parking garage.
Richard Beverly of Chesapeake, the uncle of the wounded man, Marcus D. McGee, 26, said a car trying to squeeze by sideswiped that of McGee's roommate, Ovalle-Peralta.
The cars stopped, and the other driver became angry when asked for insurance information, Beverly said. His nephew took a cell-phone photo of the uncooperative driver's license plate. Fists were thrown, then gunfire rang out. McGee was struck, ran away, and was struck again before crawling behind a parked car with five wounds, Beverly said.
"He heard some more shots, and then I guess somebody called police," Beverly said.
Ovalle-Peralta died of a gunshot wound to the head, the state medical examiner's office reported. McGee is recuperating at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. A couple in the back of their car were uninjured, McGee's family said.
Police arrested Reginald E. Royals Jr., 24, of Virginia Beach, and charged him with murder, malicious wounding and two firearm charges. He was apprehended as he left the garage.
McGee's aunt, Jacqueline McGee, said her nephew and Ovalle-Peralta had roomed together about five years and were "best buds" ever since working together at a Chesapeake Wal-Mart. McGee was supposed to start a new job Monday as a machinery operator at a terminal warehouse. Ovalle-Peralta was a well-liked mechanic at Hampton Roads Transit for more than three years, said spokesman Tom Holden.
Ovalle-Peralta emigrated from the Dominican Republic as a teenager, knowing little English, and became a U.S. citizen last month. Late last week, he learned that paperwork had gone through to bring his young son to this country, said Karen Ovalle of Chesapeake, his sister-in-law.
"He was just an amazing person," Karen Ovalle said. "He never seemed to be down about anything."
The pair were homebodies, McGee's aunt said, enjoying video games with occasional forays out - like to Waterside on Saturday night.
"These were young men who did all the right things and just were involved in a shooting that changed a lot of lives," Jacqueline McGee said.
Her husband, a Navy chief petty officer, brought Marcus McGee here from Detroit after the nephew's high school graduation "to try and get him out of the city," he said, adding with a rueful laugh: "To a safer place."
Pilot writers Lauren King and Debbie Messina contributed to this report.
Matthew Bowers, (757) 222-3893, matthew.bowers@pilotonline.com
Harry Minium, (757) 446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com
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Again for twomiler..
Two (or is that miler?), you claim to read 8 papers a day, and to listen and watch a host of other media venues. How many of them report on southside Hampton Roads? In other words, what's your point? Per your comments, crimes are reported 'differently' when they involve 'yuppies', or as you put it, Yuppieville. How so? Please enlighten me, how are ALL these crimes being reported, that involves all them yuppies? If you read my post(s), you will have seen where I stated that crimes involving some among the 'yuppie' element do indeed take place. You are implying that a lot more of them take place than I am allowing for. Again (and I'm challenging you here), how so? Are you saying that they compare to the crime rates generated from your typical public housing project? Hmmm?
Now it's your turn to apologize
You assume too much. I read 8 daily newspapers, everyday. I watch at least 3 hours of news, daily, local state, national & international. I listen to NPR & CBS News stations. I attend council & board meetings. I actually volunteer in financially deprived areas, in the inner city, suburban & rural areas, so I speak with knowledge of situations within these communities. You claim your comments were tongue -in - cheek. Yet you still attempt to give them weight, in your response, with your explanation. You need to ride in a patrol car for a while. You'd be surprised just how much of what you describe as inner city crime actually occurs in "Yuppieville," committed by residents of these areas. Things are reported in different ways. If you can't admit that simple reality, then you are missing quite a lot of reality. Have a good 1.
For twomiler..
"Perhaps I'm mistaken, if so I will apologize in advance."
You are mistaken, so I accept your apology. The comment about the establishments in that part of town being ‘oppressive’ were tongue-in-cheek, but based on the usual drivel we’re feted to about how ‘down trodden’ the residents of these public housing projects are often portrayed. In other words, if they have to seek employment catering to the ‘yuppies’, the bankers, and all those others with some actual disposable income, it’s just more of the oh-so unfairness of it all! That’s the point!
Again, try reading the newspaper a couple times a week, watch the TV news, listen to the radio news. Marvel at how much crime is located in that part of the city. Connect the dots, if you will. All of those who reside in public housing are not criminals. But they have too many of them as it is. If you want to tell me that there’s bound to be a criminal element in any given yuppie neighborhood, I won’t argue with you. I can look at the tax cheats on the present administration to see that. But they’re not conducting the volume of break ins, larcenies, muggings, etc., that goes on nightly in downtown Norfolk in t
cigim94543
First off my name is Gertz and not Gertie. Second don't even begin to try and tell me what, when and how to comment on this or "any other" article, and third I know more about Waterside from the first day it opened then you will ever know.
to justaguyfromchesapeakea
You are the only one who wrote words to the effect describing Downtown business establishments as oppressive. Why? I detect a superiority complex, concerning some people, as opposed to your image of yourself, in your comments. Perhaps I'm mistaken, if so I will apologize in advance. Yet you need to understand how any one else reading your comments could come to this conclusion. Perhaps you don't care. C'est la vie. Have a good 1.
Gertz Point doesn't have a clue
before you say anything about Waterside Gertie, do visit Waterside, there is live entertainment, shops, family restaurants, an Art Gallery, A beautiful marina, the Waterside is attracting visitors from the Sheraton Hotel just next door, so Gertie, please get the facts before you contribute your 3 cents on any of these topics. http://www.watersidemarketplace.com/
Waterside is not the problem
The first murder was a robbery not even close to Waterside, or any nightspot or parking garage for that matter.
The second, in the garage, was essentially a case of "road rage": an argument that got out of hand because someone had a gun and no self-control.
Waterside Garage Shooting
Anthony Burfoot, Norfolk's Vice Mayor is blaming the Security Situation of Waterside on lack of security personnel or law enforcement personnel on hand. With 10 off duty police officers on hand then there are more police officers on hand per capita then the rest of the City of Norfolk. The problem with The Downtown Norfolk Section is one that needs to be addressed by Virginia Alcohol Beverage Control Board. It is not just the establishments in the Waterside Festival Center, but also every other drinking establishment in Downtown Norfolk, has a problem with serving people one if not three or four too many drinks. This is a drinking and driving, and also a personal responsibility issue. The shooter was apprehended as he was leaving the scene. It is tragic that a young man died and another was injured, but the perpetrator was arrested immediately. Anthony Burfoot is trying to use security as a reason to close down a facility that is hemmorhaging money and is on city life support. The City of Norfolk does not need to close this facility for security reasons, it would be cheaper to assign on duty police officers to patrol a facility that the city has a large stake in. As for t
Shootings
My dad always told me when you see something happening over and over again you need to connect the dots. There are common threads in the recent shootings in the area. Early morning, bars/alcohol, guns, and young minorities=another senseless death.....sad but true. Now how do we put an end to it?
Seems easy to me!
If you want to keep our streets safe we need to stop leaving the thugs that are arrested on charges out on bond. If you are charged with a violent crime you sit in jail until your trial. It would eliminate the hoods using the law to postpone the trial dates, they want out as soon as possible. It would force the prosecutors to pick up the pace of prosecution, and more importantly, it would considerably knock down the crime rate. We need to stop being such bleeding heart liberals, another name for sheep that are willing to sacrifice another person so the criminal element don't have to be punished so harshly. Get real, stop being sheep. Lock these people up and make them serve the full sentence. My opinion may not be a cheap solution, but what is one life worth? Increase the funding for jails and prisons, and charge what you need too. I would gladly pay higher taxes so that I would not feel the need to conceal carry to protect my family and myself.