In one week, Virginia Beach sees a rare burst of fatal shootings

VIRGINIA BEACH

A trio of homicides in the past week has made December one of the deadliest months in Virginia Beach in recent  history.

Since Dec. 23 , three double shootings have left three people dead and as many injured. The incidents were unrelated and occurred in different parts  of the city. In two of the cases, disagreements resulted in gunfire. The third was unprovoked, police said.

The spate of killings is unusual for a city that usually averages one or two homicides a month. There have been four so far in December, more than any month in the past two years.

“Four in a month is unusual and three in one week is highly unusual,” said Officer Adam Bernstein, a police spokesman. “There’s no rhyme or reason to any of them, really.”

Last week’s fatalities bring the total number of homicides so far this year to 18, one more than in 2008. Two of last year’s 17 cases were ruled justifiable, Bernstein said. Police have made arrests in all but one of this year’s cases.

Early on Dec. 23,  Lucious Williams III, 22, and a friend returned home from a  club and were standing outside when a dispute broke out, police said. Shots were fired, killing Williams and injuring his friend. The shooting occurred on Harrier Street in the Northridge neighborhood.

Police later arrested Steven Walton, 24, of Norfolk in the shooting.

Just after midnight Saturday in Ocean Lakes, a neighbor knocked on Keith Scott Chapin’s door and asked for a beer, said Chapin’s live-in girlfriend, Susie Carter. He obliged, but declined the neighbor’s request to come inside, she said.

That’s when Carter, who was upstairs at the time, heard gunfire. Chapin, 35, the lead vocalist in a local heavy-metal band, was shot and died at the scene, police said. A second person, his brother, was seriously wounded.

After a standoff that lasted more than two hours, police arrested one of Chapin’s neighbors, Aaron Louis Patterson, 45.

Later that night, an argument led to gunshots at Trailer City on Virginia Beach Boulevard, killing Florentino Martinez-Melendez, 40, and seriously injuring another, police said.

Seven blocks away, police pulled over and arrested Jorge Alberto Fuertes Loredo and Isidro Loredo Amaya, both 31. In all three cases, the suspects have been charged with murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, police said. Walton and Patterson also face malicious wounding charges.

Despite the recent violence, Virginia Beach is still one of the safest cities of its size, Bernstein said. There were 2.5 violent crimes per 1,000 residents last year, beating the national average of 21 per 1,000 residents, he said.

The number of homicides has been cut nearly in half since 1994, when there were 33.

Kathy Adams, (757) 222-5155, kathy.adams@pilotonline.com