ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 24, 1996 TAG: 9604240059
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON AND DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITERS
NOTE: Below
Kenya Reynolds sat in a waiting room at Roanoke Memorial Hospital Tuesday afternoon and thanked God that she and several of her loved ones were still alive.
Just a couple of hours earlier, said Reynolds, 21, she stood in the middle of a shower of bullets.
Three carloads of people showed up at her apartment in the Bluestone public housing project on Sand Road shortly after 1 p.m. Several in the group opened fire on her, her boyfriend, her brother and one of his friends. All but Reynolds were wounded.
The cause of the shooting: An apparent fight between Reynolds and another woman.
"I can't remember any recent time this amount of people went after others with handguns, over a situation with apparently little magnitude of importance," said Maj. J.L. Viar of the Roanoke Police Department.
The shootings put police in the northwest section of the city on alert. Officers of the patrol, detective and community-oriented policing divisions responded.
Late Tuesday, detectives were still trying to piece together the events. They said at least five people fired handguns during the incident. Three people were shot, but none was seriously injured.
Reynolds said she knew all of the five who fired shots.
"That's just how they are," she said. "If one of 'em has to fight, they're all in on it. And they always have guns."
The shootings were prompted by a fight Monday night at another Roanoke apartment complex. Reynolds said she was jumped by three girls. She won the fight, she said, and one of the girls who jumped her then told a male acquaintance.
He and a group of his friends were the ones who showed up at Reynolds' house on Tuesday to settle the score, she said.
According to the police, they went to Reynolds' home but left when the people inside refused to come out. A short time later they returned with more people.
This time, Reynolds' 21-year-old boyfriend and two of the people who came to her house got into a fistfight outside. As others on both sides got involved, a shot was fired. According to the police, five men and juveniles then brandished handguns and began firing.
Reynolds backed up against her mother's car when the shooting began.
"I looked down and saw the tire go flat," she said. "Then I looked over and saw my brother standing there with his shirt soaked with blood. I saw my mom come running out of the house toward him, and I ran over and grabbed my boyfriend."
Her boyfriend, whose name was not available Tuesday, had fallen to the ground and covered his head with his hands. He walked away with only a scratch - a bullet grazed his head, she said.
A neighbor yelled out that he had called the police, and the shooters and others with them scattered, Reynolds said. One in the group left some evidence at the scene - his car.
Reynolds' brother, Erin Reynolds, 17, was shot in the buttock. His friend, William Campbell, 20, was shot in the right thigh. A third victim, Benitiz Copeland, 16, was shot in the thigh, according to witnesses, but returned to his Hanover Avenue Northwest home soon after the incident.
"He was on the steps," said Ron Gray, who lives with Copeland at 1211 Hanover Ave. "I said, 'Damn, what happened?' He said he got shot. He was sweating and crying. I told him to go lay down."
Gray's 14-year-old sister, Ashley, said she called police.
A plainclothes detective who arrived at Copeland's residence said a bullet whizzed by his car. He did not see who fired the shot. No one was injured.
About the same time, several miles away, Roanoke C.O.P.E. officers found three suspects holding a pit bull near Breckinridge Middle School on Williamson Road Northwest. An animal control officer had to restrain the dog before arrests could be made, police said.
Teon Lee Parris, 20, of Pilot Street Northwest; Arcadius Washington, 20, of Madison Avenue Northwest; and Dwayne A. Gray, 21, of Hanover Avenue Northwest were each charged with malicious wounding, according to the police.
Juvenile court petitions for malicious wounding were also being sought on two 17-year-old boys.
At the hospital, Kenya Reynolds tried to put the situation in perspective.
"I never thought this would explode into something this big," she said. "It's ridiculous."
Then she wondered what could have been. If the gunfight had broken out moments later it would have been time for Reynolds' three children to return home from school.
But the bus arrived more than an hour late and her children never saw a thing.
"Somebody up there was looking out for me," she said.
LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL/Staff. 1. Roanoke police guard three suspectsby CNBarrested near Breckinridge Middle School. An animal control officer
took the pit bull. 2. Kenya Reynolds said a fight she had Monday
night with three girls started the incident. color. Graphic: Map by
staff. color.