THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 4, 1996 TAG: 9601040303
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
A police officer, shot twice by a man he had been chasing in the Brambleton section of the city, returned fire Wednesday night, killing the gunman.
Officer Chris R. Amos acted in self-defense, said police spokesman Larry Hill.
The shooting occurred just before 7:30 p.m. on Bond Street near Marshall Avenue.
Police identified the dead man as Juan H. Moore, 19. A bystander at the shooting scene said he recently moved to Norfolk from Plymouth, N.C.
Just before 7:30 p.m., Hill said, two 1st Precinct officers were on a routine bike patrol near the Norfolk State University campus when they came upon two men engaged in what appeared to them to be a narcotics deal.
The two men took off in different directions as the officers rode up, Hill said. The officers split up, each chasing a suspect.
Hill said it was not clear exactly where the officers had first seen the men or how long the pursuit lasted, but at 7:27 p.m., dispatchers received the first call that an officer was down and had been shot.
``The other officer was away from here, but he heard the shot and came back'' to check on his partner, Hill said. The name of the second officer was not released.
Gunshots hit Amos in his chest and a leg. ``He was wearing his (bullet-proof) vest, so the shot did not penetrate'' to his chest, Hill said. He did suffer a leg injury, however, and was taken to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, where he was in stable condition.
Amos has been on the bicycle patrol about four years and has logged more than 12,000 miles.
The other suspect was able to get away. Police were looking for him late Wednesday; Hill asked that anyone with information call Crime Line at 664-4040.
After the shooting, police closed off streets for several blocks around the scene and brought in a fire truck with high-intensity lights to illuminate the area. Technicians and investigators scoured the area looking for evidence and shooting videotape.
The body remained in the street, under a sheet. Two police bicycles lay on their sides nearby. A police officer's bike helmet rested on the ground just feet from the dead man.
Small crowds of curious residents gathered along lines of yellow police tape, watching quietly. But then a young woman broke the general silence.
``Why'd they do that?'' she screamed. She said she was the dead man's girlfriend. ``Why'd they do that to my baby?''
Her mother, Gale Reid, said Moore went by the nickname ``T.J.'' She said he was from Plymouth, N.C., but had moved to Norfolk with his mother, who is a nurse and he had been dating her daughter about three years.
``He made his worst mistake when he came to Virginia,'' Reid said. ``T.J. was a very nice person. . . . He had all sorts of sports trophies.''
She said she had no idea why he was out on the street or what he was doing when he was shot. ``We were all in the house playing `Trouble,' '' a board game, she said.
``I'm concerned about my neighborhood. We need to stop all the violence,'' Reid said after walking a block away from the shooting scene and briefly consoling a woman she described as the dead man's mother.
``These guns is dangerous. . . it's just messed up. Black people need to get together and live like they're supposed to,'' Reid said. ``The love is gone.''
Reid's daughter, in tears, ran back toward the shooting scene.
Reid chased after her, calling her name and reciting from the Bible: ``Yea, though I walk through the Valley of Death, I shall fear no evil . . . but we're walking in fear.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
CHRISTOPHER REDDICK/The Virginian-Pilot
A crowd gathered Wednesday night as Norfolk police examined the body
of Juan H. Moore, 19, suspected in the wounding of bicycle patrol
officer Chris R. Amos. Moore and another man allegedly ran when the
two-officer patrol approached them.
KEYWORDS: ASSAULT SHOOTING FATALITY by CNB