THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 4, 1995 TAG: 9504040310
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Long : 107 lines
Third Baptist Church on Godwin Street was packed with mourners on the afternoon of March 20 for the funeral of Steven Parker.
The 39-year-old Army veteran had died five days earlier when caught in the crossfire of a gunfight in one of this city's toughest neighborhoods, the Ida Barbour housing project.
The victim's mother, 65-year-old Marion Parker, remembers the crowd was large and respectful.
``Everyone loved Steven,'' she said. ``He was never in any trouble.''
What Marion Parker didn't know was that Portsmouth police officers were hidden in the crowd. They were staking out the funeral, looking for suspects in the shooting.
Their hunch paid off. As the funeral was about to begin, the undercover officers intercepted a car heading down High Street toward the church. In it were four men and a Tec-9 assault weapon, an illegal handgun that can hold up to 30 rounds of ammunition.
The police chased the car, then captured the men on foot. No one was hurt, and all four men were arrested.
Police have charged three men with Parker's murder: one of the men in the car; another arrested earlier that week; and a third who was arrested on March 21 in Norfolk. Police say they may make additional arrests connected with the slaying.
Now police hope the tragedy of Parker's murder can be turned into something positive. They said it could serve as a lesson on why communication between police and citizens is crucial for law and order to exist in a city plagued by crime.
The funeral stakeout was one of several unusual twists in the investigation of Parker's murder. Police have relentlessly followed the turns, in part, because Parker's murder was a crime they say almost resulted in full-scale gang warfare in the city.
``I don't think the people involved realized how serious this was,'' said Portsmouth homicide detective Robert Simmons. ``We were looking at the possibility of having an all-out war in the city. And it all started with the death of an innocent person.''
Simmons said Parker, who was visiting his mother and sister at Ida Barbour on March 15, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was not the target of the gunmen. Simmons would not reveal the name of the man who was the target, but says it was the man whom the four suspects with the Tec-9 went after at Parker's funeral.
A juvenile, 17-year-old Deangelo Reed of the 1st block of Suburban Court in Portsmouth, was another innocent victim of the March 15 shooting. Reed was treated for gunshot wounds at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.
Parker's friends and neighbors in Ida Barbour misinterpreted the attack as part of a feud between competing gangs, one made up of Ida Barbour residents and the other made up of residents of the Fairwood Homes neighborhood, police said.
The dispute, Simmons said, dates to a shootout in November 1994 at the Global Affairs nightclub on Williamsburg Avenue. Three people were wounded by gunfire that night, he said.
That altercation involved people from Ida Barbour and Fairwood Homes, Simmons said. The ill feelings between the two groups simmered but did not erupt again into violence until Parker was shot. Then, Simmons said, the Ida Barbour gang members incorrectly assumed that Parker was shot as retaliation for the Global Affairs incident.
Early on the morning of March 16, two cars in the 500 block of Dorset Ave. in Fairwood Homes were set on fire. A house in the same block was riddled with more than 25 bullets. No one was injured.
Police believe the cars were burned and the house shot up in retaliation for Parker's shooting.
Immediately after the attacks at Fairwood Homes, Simmons said, police intervened with the two gangs.
``We were able to communicate with both parties,'' Simmons said. ``We were able to convince them to let us do our jobs and stop the shooting. . . . Had we not tried to squash the problem, there would have been an all-out war.''
Initially, police also thought that Parker's shooting was connected to the Global Affairs incident. But as the investigation continued, Simmons said, they began to realize that the dispute was between individuals, not gangs, and was unrelated to what had happened in November at Global Affairs.
``We believe now it was probably a he-said-she-said type of situation that caused the shooting,'' Simmons said. ``We don't think it was related to what happened in November.''
When police began following the new lead, Simmons said, they got a tip that an attack was likely at Parker's funeral. The target of that attack was the individual who had been shot at on March 15, Simmons says.
Sylvester F. Pleasant Jr., 18, of the 2500 block of Graham St. was caught by police during the funeral stakeout and charged in Parker's murder. Melvin D. Granger, 21, of the 500 block of Gygax Ave. was already in custody in connection with the slaying. He had been arrested March 17.
Donovan E. Jones, 23, of the 1400 block of Melon Drive in Norfolk, was arrested March 21 and charged with murder after he was picked up by Norfolk police on an outstanding robbery warrant.
Simmons said he hopes the Parker murder will help convince citizens that they can confide in police when violent crimes threaten them.
``That is something that I think we need to work on,'' Simmons said. ``Once we get all the paperwork straight on this case and talk to a few more people we will be able to set up a meeting where we can sit down and talk to these individuals and try to get all these problems ironed out.'' ILLUSTRATION: Steven Parker, 39, an Army veteran, died when he was caught in
the crossfire of a gunfight. Now police hope the tragedy of his
murder can bring something positive - communication between police
and citizens.
KEYWORDS: ARREST MURDER SHOOTING by CNB