ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 3, 1996 TAG: 9610030058
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JON CAWLEY STAFF WRITER
An armed man confronted Roanoke police officers early Wednesday on Chapman Avenue Southwest as they checked on gunshots they had heard.
Minutes earlier, a man had been shot and a 15-year-old boy assaulted in the area.
About 12:40 a.m., officers pulled into a vacant lot at 14th Street and Chapman. A man dressed in black turned to face them and aimed a handgun at the patrol car, police said. The officers drew their guns and took cover. The man ran, with officers in pursuit.
At the end of the chase, police arrested Michael Daniel Jackson, 21, of Syracuse Avenue Northwest and charged him with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and brandishing and shooting a firearm in the city. He was released later Wednesday from the Roanoke City Jail.
Police reported hearing three or four more shots come from an alley behind them during the chase. A large-caliber handgun was found in an alley on the 1500 block of Chapman, police said.
About the same time, officers were told that a nearby home on Chapman had been robbed. When officers arrived, they found several articles of clothing in the front yard. Residents said a 15-year-old boy had been stripped of his clothes by several men dressed in black. The teen-ager, whom police have not identified because of his age, had a bump and cut on his forehead. He told police he was hit with a gun and forced to remove his clothing.
No one at the residence reported being robbed, police said.
An unidentified witness told officers one of the men shot into the ground and that someone in the group may have shot himself in the foot, police said.
Officers also were notified that a man at a house in the 1500 block of Chapman Avenue had been shot. Chris Napier, 22, was found at his home with a gunshot wound to his leg. He was admitted to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
Napier said the bullet had struck his kneecap and ricocheted down his leg. He said doctors have told him he probably won't have any permanent injuries.
"I was walking up the street [about 50 feet from his home] and heard gunfire. Something hit me in the leg and I fell down on my knee. I thought my knee had popped out but there was a hole in my pants and blood was dripping out," he said.
Napier said he doesn't know where the bullet came from.
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