THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 25, 1996 TAG: 9607250352
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANGELITA PLEMMER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 106 lines
Winifred Reid waited patiently on the steps of the ranch-style home on Halstead Avenue that 7-year-old Blanca H. Garcia used to climb to visit her grandmother.
Reid, the principal at St. Helena Elementary School in Berkley, had come to Lunetta Joyner's house Wednesday afternoon on a mission of compassion: Blanca, one of her summer school students, was killed in the crossfire of gunshots in Portsmouth on Monday evening.
Reid was accompanied by the school's PTA president and a community social worker, who carefully cradled a large pot of bright yellow chrysanthemums.
The three visitors walked into a cozy living room filled with the spirited sounds of gospel music, where the walls are decorated with family photographs.
Joyner, the family's 54-year-old matriarch, clutched a color photo of a cherubic, beaming Blanca.
``What can we do for you?'' Reid asked Joyner, who also held her granddaughter's last letter, written in crayon.
``Y'all help by being here and supporting us,'' Joyner, sitting in her Fox Hall home, said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
``My little girl had so much love and she didn't even know it,'' Joyner said, describing Blanca as an energetic, friendly and lovable first-grader. ``She was just an innocent child.''
``Why did they take my baby away from me?'' she wanted to know. ``I've heard so many stories. . . . I don't know why she was over there.''
Teachers and staff at St. Helena Elementary described Blanca as a vivacious child who was notorious for sneaking up behind adults and catching them off guard with bear hugs. She made friends easily, helped other students with their work in class and asked her summer school teacher, Adrian Herbert, to wear a special flowered dress. Red was her favorite color.
Police are continuing to investigate the shooting that killed Blanca and left three men wounded inside a two-story Park View house in Portsmouth that has been converted into apartments.
Detectives still have not determined a motive for the shooting in the first block of Webster Ave., although it may have stemmed from a dispute over a woman. Police said the shooting was not drug-related and did not involve robbery.
On Tuesday, one of the three men, 25-year-old Lamario Cooper of Norfolk, was charged with malicious wounding. Cooper is being held without bond in the Portsmouth City Jail. Additional charges may be filed. Police would not release the names of the other two men involved in the shooting.
According to police, Blanca hid in a bathroom upstairs when the dispute began. When she walked out of the bathroom, one of the men fired toward the front door, hitting her in the neck area. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
All three men were injured by gunfire. One was flown to Duke University Hospital in North Carolina for an injury to his hand. Another man was taken to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. The third was treated at Portsmouth General Hospital.
Blanca's death was the second in four months in which a young resident of Norfolk's Berkley section was caught in a shootout. Blanca, of the 400 block of Pendleton St., lived about three blocks from the Hough Avenue home of 3-year-old Taylor Ricks.
Taylor was killed by a stray bullet April 1 when she lifted the blinds in a second-floor bedroom window and a bullet struck her in the head.
Joyner, Blanca's grandmother, said Wednesday, ``God called her for a reason.'' But, she added, ``It hurts. It still hurts.''
``I wished I had Blanca,'' Joyner said. ``She was my little girl. . . . Now I won't ever see her smile.''
``I guarantee nothing won't happen to these three,'' she said sternly, hugging Blanca's sisters, 9-year-old Lunetta Joyner and 6-year-old Yesenia Garcia, and Blanca's younger brother, 5-year-old Michael Garcia.
``She's an angel now,'' Joyner told Michael as she held him in her arms.
Joyner said she heard about the shooting and was told to meet family members at Portsmouth General Hospital. She said she had started to pray that God would heal Blanca when one of her daughters told her that Blanca was dead.
``Blanca was somebody special,'' she said. ``I just didn't believe my baby was gone.''
Recounting Monday's shooting, Blanca's mother, Suzette Garcia, 27, said Wednesday her daughter was with Cooper, one of her male friends in the Portsmouth apartment, when two men rang the doorbell. Her friend opened the door, she said, and let the men in without looking through the peephole first. Gunfire then erupted.
Garcia said, ``I don't hold nothing against Lamario Cooper. It's not his fault.''
Garcia, who lives on Pendleton Street in the Berkley area, said she was still waiting for detectives to provide her with more details of the shooting. MEMO: Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the
Portsmouth Detective Bureau at 393-8536. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
Blanca Garcia, 7, had sought refuge in a bathroom when the shooting
broke out. When she emerged, she was shot.
MOTOYA NAKAMURA
The Virginian-Pilot
Blanca Garcia's grandmother, Lunetta Joyner, comforts the slain
girl's 5-year-old brother, Michael. During a visit from the
principal and PTA president at Blanca's school, Joyner vowed that no
harm would come to the little girl's siblings.
MOTOYA NAKAMURA
The Virginian-Pilot
Lunetta Joyner, 9, Blanca Garcia's older sister, listens to
conversation about Blanca's death. Lunetta, 9, her sister Yesenia
Garcia, 6, and brother Michael Garcia, 5, live three blocks from
where Taylor Ricks, 3, was shot to death April 1.
KEYWORDS: SHOOTING ARREST FATALITY by CNB