When teen parties turn violent, gunfire can be next

Editor's note: A recent spate of gun violence involving teenagers led The Virginian-Pilot to take a closer look at the problem. This is part of an occasional series.

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Text messages and MySpace pages beckon teens to houses and halls thumping with music.

They dance inside garages, studios and daytime businesses that open doors to private events after dark.

These “rent” parties pull teenagers from across Hampton Roads, sometimes by the hundreds. Hosts often collect a few dollars from the strangers at the doorstep.

Most come for fun. Some come for trouble.

Rent parties can be as uncontrolled as they are prolific. Word spreads instantly on the Internet, drawing students from competing schools and rival gangs. Minor slights turn to talk of guns and settling scores.

A high school dance in a Chesapeake home last fall ended in a barrage of gunfire. A Maury High School athlete died of a shotgun blast to the head as he searched for a ride at the end of a party in January. And two Virginia Beach gatherings in one August weekend ended in bloodshed when five teens were injured by gunfire.

Kimani Fraser, 18, has seen it happen more than once.

“If it’s a house party,” she said, “there’s going to be violence.”

Kimani felt tension in the air. It was 10 p.m. on Sept. 13, 2008, and she’d just arrived at a classmate’s back-to-school party.

About 100 people mingled near the house on Excalibur Street in Chesapeake’s Deep Creek section.

Guests had wandered out of the garage, where a mix of hip-hop, R&B and reggae played on a stereo. No one danced. They leaned on cars parked in the street, smoked cigarettes and drank beer, some tossing empty cans in the bushes.

The hosts pleaded with people to get off the street before the cops came. But no one moved.

Kimani considered leaving. She remembered another party where a group of guys had beaten up a boy. Someone fired a gun in the air. The guests scattered. Kimani ran to a convenience store for cover.

Her mother, Ericka Fraser, had picked up Kimani there, swearing the teen would no longer be allowed at rent parties.

Fraser said no to the dance on Excalibur Street, then relented; Kimani was going with friends, and she knew the girl hosting the party from Deep Creek High School.

The girl, A.A., as she would later be identified in court records, planned the event with two friends. She spoke to The Virginian-Pilot on the condition that she not be named. She is a minor and fearful of retribution.

It was her first party, a big deal. She’d cleaned out the garage, distributed fliers and compiled mix CDs that played no song twice.

She enlisted her father and her brother-in-law to man the doorways, question guests, frisk them, and turn them away if they were too old or carried weapons or alcohol.

A.A. wanted to have a dance for her friends, not a block party for strangers. She’d seen trouble at other parties: teen boys puffed up with pride, making threats, pulling guns from cars at the end of the night. When she realized the majority of the guests at her dance were boys, she called girlfriends and urged them to show up , hoping to discourage trouble.

She charged $2 per person at the door.

By the time Kimani arrived, people were wandering in and out of the garage. She felt uneasy. After just 15 minutes, she decided to leave. A.A. told people the party was over.

Shots er upted as Kimani headed up Excalibur Street. A car sped away.

People raced for A.A.’s house, yelling for someone to call 911. They filled rooms. Peered from windows. Cried. Screamed.

Some fled from the neighborhood. Kimani was among them, dialing her mother on her cell phone.

Fraser was waiting up at home when she received the frantic call. She ran to the car to fetch her daughter, screaming.

Ra-Shawn Finney, an 18-year-old football standout from I.C. Norcom known as “Peanut,” lay bleeding on Excalibur Street. Someone held a towel to his wounds.

He would die in a hospital two weeks later.

A 23-year-old man would eventually plead guilty to second-degree murder.

Court records revealed that at least three guns were fired that night, including a shotgun.

The parties go by different names.

“Rent” parties help pay the rent. “House” parties happen in private homes. Girls in revealing clothing get in free to “shorty-shorts” parties, and at “pajama” parties, alcohol isn’t served.

Many occur discreetly. Most violate criminal laws only if alcohol is served to minors, although hosts who charge admission in residential neighborhoods could be violating local zoning regulations or admissions-tax requirements.

Those rules are difficult to enforce. So are curfews, which don’t apply in some cities to school activities, church events, jobs, emergencies or errands run for parents.

The parties have become so commonplace that Virginia Beach’s commissioner of the revenue took notice.

Phil Kellam said the growing popularity of the parties has made it more difficult to collect the city’s 10 percent admissions tax, and he blames the Internet.

“It’s grown because there’s a medium of communication that allows it to grow,” Kellam said.

Often, hundreds of fliers go out. Texts and tweets travel instantly.

“A friend tells a friend who tells another friend,” said Chesapeake police Capt. Edward McIntyre. “That friend tells a cousin who tells a cousin who usually doesn’t have anything better to do. Everybody piles in the car and heads over there. When you look up, your whole street is filled. That’s how it gets out of control.”

Some hosts sell Jell-O shots for $2 or Coronas for $3. Others offer only a S partan array of refreshments, such as water and Gatorade. Cover charges of $5 to $10 a person pay for DJs, rental halls and security. They can also provide a small income for a host; A.A. said she bought a jacket with money earned at her party.

More partygoers offer the potential for more cash. Many hosts try to weed out problems at the door, with formal or informal security, b ut they can’t screen for vendettas or rivalries. Tensions that begin inside a party can play out in front of the venue or down the street.

At times, shooters target teens after the parties in seemingly random gunfire.

People who attended a January party at The Cage Conference Center in Norfolk say there were no problems inside, b ut someone shot and killed 18-year-old Charles Humphrey in the early hours of Jan. 4 after the party had disbanded. The investigation into the Maury High athlete’s death continues.

Shootings that occur where dozens have gathered can be nearly impossible to solve, McIntyre said.

“It’s total chaos,” he said. “You don’t know who fired and who got fired at.”

Authorities are increasingly watchful. They want to make sure no one serves kids alcohol and that parties stay in control, said Lt. Mike Hayes of the Portsmouth Police Department.

“As soon as we see anything directed at the high school, juvenile population, we look into it and see if it’s on the up-and-up,” Hayes said.

Portsmouth resource officers take notice of fliers distributed in schools, and community officers stay abreast of neighborhood events.

In Chesapeake, a police sergeant trolls MySpace for announcements. When he suspects trouble, he pays the homeowner a visit.

“We tell them our prior experience with people: They’ll come in and destroy your house before they leave,” McIntyre said. “If it gets really out of hand, somebody will get hurt.”

Elton Parker welcomed the chance to throw a teen party the right way. He works for Emagine Events, an event-planning firm hired by Fest­events to put on a series of monthly teen dances at Waterside.

The Norfolk nonprofit calls the new gatherings the 20/20 Teen Club Series. It’s billed as a “safe, secure, non-alcoholic party” and a “fun Friday night entertainment alternative for Hampton Roads youth.”

“There is no cause for the violence,” Parker said as he stood outside the old Dockmaster’s restaurant on a mild September night at the start of the first dance.

Posters on windows spelled out the rules: No cussing or intimidation. No weapons. No smoking. No white T-shirts, low-hanging jeans or “excessive bagginess.”

Frantina Guzman bid her teenage daughters goodbye at the doorway, where two uniformed police officers and a cluster of unarmed security workers in black T-shirts stood watch.

Guzman waved to Abriel, 15, and Cynthia, 13. See you later, she told them.

The girls accepted wristbands from an officer and disappeared into the dimness.

Until now, Guzman had never let her daughters go out without her. This party would be different, she said. “I knew it would be safe.”

A small but intense uniformed Norfolk officer with a gun told people to tuck in their shirts and to produce IDs. If they were older than 18, he turned them away.

Inside, several workers in T-shirts label ed “Security” strolled through crowds. Music blared. Disco balls spun at either end of a bar, spilling rainbow flecks across a shiny expanse of floor. Kids trickled in.

Abriel and Cynthia sat at a table near the back. They heard about the dance on the radio and wanted to give it a try.

“It’s not too violent,” said Abriel, looking up from her cell phone.

Her boyfriend was on the way. She liked the music. She felt safe.

All went well that night.

Marvin Riner thought all was going well at his Virginia Beach venue.

Three hours into the party, the music abruptly stopped.

Riner rose from behind his office desk at Magic Moments Dance Studio and headed for the dance floor.

Turn on the lights, someone told him. The room brightened over a handful of unarmed security workers ushering nearly a hundred kids from the building to the parking lot.

The sudden silence startled Riner. The owner of the studio usually taught ballroom and Latin dance. On the last Sunday in August he’d rented the place to a private group for $50 an hour. An adult signed a contract for the teen party, paid the fee, and brought security and a DJ. The host charged the young guests at the door. Security frisked them.

Riner kept to his office, except to peek in for trouble. Lights reflected off mirrored walls. Kids danced. He said hello, set up a strobe light because he thought they might like it.

Around midnight, a dispute erupted between party­goers from rival street gangs, a search warrant would later show. Security told everyone to leave.

Riner stood at the door. Out in the parking lot, members of the Norfolk Berkley Boys and Portsmouth YNIC retrieved guns from their cars and fired on each other.

About 30 teenagers fled back inside, some screaming. Two people were struck. A girl was carried inside. A bullet pierced the window of the dance studio.

A security worker wrapped a girl’s bullet wound. The teens stood in stunned silence as they waited for the police and the paramedics.

Days later, six people were arrested. Three were younger than 18. None was older than 20.

It wasn’t the only violence involving teen rent parties in Virginia Beach that weekend.

Two nights earlier, as more than 100 young people waited for rides after a private party at Jungle Gym entertainment, shots were fired .

Details were hazy, but this much was certain: The gunfire wounded three teenagers.

Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5208, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com Amy Jeter, (757) 446-2730, amy.jeter@pilotonline.com