Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 2, 1993 TAG: 9309020253
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"It doesn't happen weekly. It doesn't happen daily," he said.
"It does happen."
It happened Tuesday.
About 11 p.m., Chandler and his patrol partner, Tom Buzzo, received a report of shots fired near the Harrison Museum of African American History in Northwest Roanoke.
As Buzzo pulled the patrol car up to the intersection of Sixth Street and Harrison Avenue, the two officers saw a group of eight to 10 youths hurrying toward them.
As Chandler got out of the car, he heard shots being fired. Buzzo positioned the car between the group and himself until he found out who was doing the shooting.
Buzzo started questioned the group, not knowing whether one of them could be carrying a gun.
"They said the shooting was coming from a vehicle down the hill," Chandler said.
Meanwhile, Chandler climbed a wall overlooking Sixth Street hoping to glimpse who was doing the shooting. He never did.
But the two officers saw a speeding car fleeing the scene and radioed a description to other police units.
Police learned later that a 16-year-old boy had been taken to Community Hospital with a gunshot wound to his leg.
The investigation showed that Christopher Scott Harman of Salem had been shot above the left knee after he tried to get a pack of cigarettes from a parked car on Harrison Avenue.
Police stopped a car matching the description of the fleeing vehicle on Williamson Road.
Donnie M. White, 29, of Hollins Trailer Park was charged with malicious wounding, use of a firearm and shooting from a vehicle. Theresa A. Edwards, 37, was charged as a principal in the second degree to shooting from a vehicle.
The couple told police they'd earlier been robbed by people in a white car, and they wanted to get their money back. The occupants of the car said they were simply dropping off a friend on Harrison Avenue when a man jumped off a porch and started shooting.
Police said they found two high-powered pistols discarded.
"That's what we do," Chandler said matter-of-factly. "We accept that there are guns on the street."
His supervisor, Lt. Ron Carlisle, said that was not always the case.
"Over the last seven years, there is a growing tendency to come across guns, particularly in the possession of youngsters," he said. "The tendency is to settle disputes with gunfire."
Major J.L. Viar said that type of gunfire is particularly dangerous because officers don't know who or where the shooter is.
"I don't know of a situation more dangerous than when an officer encounters random gunfire on a street corner," Viar said. "We've been extremely blessed not to have an officer killed by gunfire."
While saying he's not numbed by it all, Chandler has learned to accept that danger.
"I've got to be concerned," he said. "It means how my day goes."
by CNB