Benjamin Burruss sits in the same truck he was in in 2013 when Albemarle police held him for two hours until a SWAT team exploded a flash grenade and broke his window. staff photo
How many cops does it take to check on a man when his employer is concerned that he hasn’t shown up for work?
At least a dozen, by Benjamin Marshall Burruss’ estimate.
According to his November 19 lawsuit filed in federal court, Albemarle County Police held Burruss for two hours in his truck after he said he was fine, had no intention of harming anyone and didn’t want to talk to police, then used a flash grenade, bashed in his window, hauled him out of the truck and had him committed for psychiatric evaluation for more than 72 hours.
“I didn’t understand why this was taking place,” he says in an interview at the Rutherford Institute, whose attorneys have filed suit against Albemarle County and five police officers. “It was a nightmare.”
Burruss, 58, was born in Charlottesville, graduated from Albemarle High and was employed at Northrop Grumman for 32 years, starting when it was still Sperry Marine. He had a security clearance and worked in logistics, supplying Northrop’s security products to people around the world 24-7, 365 days a year, he says.
“He was an exemplary employee,” says his attorney, Michael Winget-Hernandez. “This event put an end to his career.”
Burruss says he’d missed a few days of work because he was adjusting to medication his doctor had given him for depression. And because of marital problems, he was staying at the Comfort Inn on Pantops.
“I needed some space,” he says. And he decided to go to Montana for some bird hunting.
According to the complaint, Northrop Grumman contacted Albemarle police the morning of November 21, 2013, and asked officers to do a welfare check on Burruss. Police were told he was at the Comfort Inn, was planning to go hunting, may have a firearm but had not made any statements that he wanted to harm himself or others, says the lawsuit.
Burruss checked out of the hotel, and in the parking lot, officers in a police car said they wanted to speak to him. “I said I didn’t want to speak to them,” he says. “I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong.”
The officers kept saying they wanted him to get out of the truck and talk to them, according to the complaint. Burruss kept saying he didn’t want to talk to them unless they had a warrant, and that he wanted to leave.
“I didn’t want to get out with all these police around me,” says Burruss. “I said, ‘I can hear you through the window.’”
Burruss had a 12-gauge shotgun in the backseat for bird hunting “in plain view with the action open,” says his attorney. “Any police would know it couldn’t be fired. That’s the safety position.”
For two hours, Burruss refused to get out of his truck and Albemarle police refused to let him leave and put a stinger under his tires, according to the lawsuit. Officer Garnett “Chip” Riley, who talked to Burruss throughout the stand-off, at one point said, “We got nothin,’” and “I got no reason to hold him,” claims
the suit.
Officer Jatana Rigsby then contacted Burruss’ wife, who also said he’d made no statements that he intended to harm anyone, according to the complaint. Kelly Burruss was told to get an emergency custody order because her husband was “acting irrationally,” says Winget-Hernandez. After seeing a magistrate and getting an ECO, she also brought police an extra key to Burruss’ truck.
Winget-Hernandez notes that the sworn petition Kelly Burruss filed has never come to light, although it’s the legal grounds for detaining Burruss. “Either it never existed or it disappeared,” he says.
Burruss told police he was tired and was going to take a nap, says Winget-Hernandez. That’s when the SWAT team exploded the flash grenade, busted his driver’s side window and yanked him out of the car, says Burruss.
“I saw four to six SWAT guys coming at me with assault rifles,” he says. “I thought I was going to die.”
Burruss was handcuffed, relieved of his pocketknife and put in a police car, still not knowing why police were detaining him and thinking it was a case of mistaken identity and that he was headed to jail, he says.
Instead, he was taken to UVA Medical Center and held for more than 72 hours.
It was afterward that his health problems began. “I started seeing counselors and was diagnosed with [post-traumatic stress disorder],” says Burruss. He struggled to sleep and with flashbacks. “I couldn’t get any of this out of my mind,” he says two years later.
“I was battered,” he says. “I was robbed. I was stripped of my family, my home, my dignity”—here his voice breaks—“and my self worth.”
Says Burruss: “To this day I don’t understand why they took the approach they did.”
He says his suit against officers Riley, Rigsby, Kanie Richardson, Robert Warfel, Captain Pete Mainzer and the county is to hold them accountable. “I hope this never happens to anybody else,” says Burruss. “I wish it hadn’t happened to me. I wish they’d been better informed and better trained. They made some terrible decisions.”
Albemarle officers receive 40 hours a year of crisis intervention training to learn to de-escalate non-violent situations, says police spokesperson Madeline Curott. They may also elect to take other mental health training. Curott says the department has not been served with Burruss’ lawsuit.
“This is just one more example of how a relatively benign situation—a routine welfare check—gets escalated into something far more violent and dangerous through the use of militarized police armed to the teeth and trained to act combatively,” says John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People.
For Burruss, along with the emotional trauma and financial impact on his family stemming from the encounter, he also had to pay for his involuntary stay at UVA Medical Center. And he has to deal with people wondering what’s wrong with him. “It’s unjust,” he says. “I’ve never hurt anyone. I’ve been violated.”
Will Mike Signer get enough votes to become the next mayor? Submitted photo
When City Council meets for the first time January 4, the five councilors will vote for a new mayor, which typically is already a done deal, and rumor is Mike Signer, incoming city councilor, has the three votes necessary to secure the mayorship.
Signer, understandably, declined to confirm he has the job in the pocket, saying only by e-mail that he’s looking forward to serving with every one of his fellow councilors, that it will be “an honor to work with them in any position” and that the decision will be made by council January 4.
His initial run for office was for lieutenant governor, so it’s not much of a stretch to see him settling for mayor as his first elected gig.
Kristin Szakos has the most seniority on council, but she, too, refused to say whether she was even interested in the job. “I’m not ready to talk about that,” she says.
Kathy Galvin is next in seniority, but didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“A lot of conversations are taking place,” says City Councilor Bob Fenwick. “Mike’s got great credentials and so do several others.” Fenwick took himself out of the running because he’s working, and because Galvin works full-time as an architect, it’s possible she’s turned down the job as well.
“I could support Mike,” says Fenwick. “He works hard.”
And, assures Fenwick, anyone he doesn’t vote for, “it’s not personal, it’s for the good of the city.”
Wes Bellamy had the highest number of votes from the November 3 election (he was voted in alongside Galvin and Signer, who had the fewest of the three), and he says he’s heard nothing about Signer being mayor. But if Signer has it sewn up with Galvin and Fenwick, he doesn’t need Bellamy in the loop.
“It’s wide open,” says Mayor Satyendra Huja, who did not seek reelection and is stepping down after serving two two-year terms as mayor. “If someone wants to be mayor, they have to have three votes.”
Traditionally, says former mayor Dave Norris, the person with the most seniority and most popular votes is up for mayor. “They’re not hard and fast rules, but those two facts do carry weight,” he says.
“Kristin has the most seniority and got the most popular vote when she ran for reelection,” he says. “I think a lot of people are expecting she’ll be the next mayor.”
Norris favors a woman as mayor and points out that Charlottesville hasn’t had a female mayor since Virginia Daugherty had the job from 1998 to 2000. “In recent years it’s been a glass ceiling that’s been difficult to crack,” he says.
However, former mayor Tom Vandever notes that the current council has a majority of women—Szakos, Galvin and outgoing Vice Mayor Dede Smith—“and they didn’t elect a woman for whatever reason.”
Vandever was elected to City Council in 1988 after Frank Buck had served eight years as mayor. “We felt it was time for a fresh face and elected Bitsy Waters,” he says. “We returned council to the tradition of rotating the job,” and it helped “to have a new face every two years.” One of the objectives in 1988 was to have a woman in the position, and Waters was followed by Alvin Edwards, an African-American.
The mayor’s job is “essentially one among equals,” says Vandever, with no additional powers except for setting the agenda and running the meetings.
“The first rule of being a councilor is you’vegot to learn to count to three,” advises Vandever. “If you can’t, you shouldn’t be there.”
Kay Slaughter served as mayor from 1996 to 1998, and she thinks it’s helpful to have experience as a councilor before taking the mayor’s job. “I know people have come on and become mayor, but I do think it helps to serve on council and go through the budget process,” she says.
David Brown, who was elected mayor his first day on City Council in 2004 and served two terms as mayor, disagrees. “What I had experience doing was running meetings,” he says. “I’d been chair of lots of organizations. If Mike Signer ended up being mayor, he’d be good at it because, really, it’s about running the meeting.”
Brown acknowledges that seniority can be a factor, but when he came on council Kevin Lynch had the seniority and wasn’t interested in the job. “He asked me if I wanted to do it,” says Brown, and with consensus from Kendra Hamilton, he says, it was a fait accompli at the first meeting.
The same thing happened two years later when the job “would have rotated to Kendra if she wanted it, and Kevin still didn’t want it,”says Brown.
He dispels one other myth: “There’s no expectation the vice mayor will be mayor.”
Reminds Brown, “It’s always whoever had the votes. Plenty of people have wanted to be mayor and didn’t have the votes.”
Guest choreographer, Katharine Birdsall, joins the UVA dance program students in a performance of movement and music. Photo: Publicity photo
In addition to showcasing the engaging, provocative work of dance program students and faculty at UVA’s Fall Dance Concert, the Department of Drama will host guest choreographer Katharine Birdsall (founder of Charlottesville’s Zen Monkey Project) in Moonlight, her tribute to Frederic Chopin’s Preludes. The performance of suites allows movement and music to share the spotlight equally.
Animal rights activist Rose Lemaster has been critical of the Fluvanna SPCA and of some of the dogs it’s allowed to be adopted.
Photo by Ron Rammelkamp
Following a string of less-than-perfect adoption incidents, a family has filed a lawsuit against the Fluvanna SPCA alleging gross negligence after a dog bit their 5-year-old child’s face, just days after they adopted the dog from the shelter.
“He had a bite wound to his right eye with puncture wounds encompassing the entire orbit,” says a May 5 bite report filed with Albemarle County Police that details the incident and injuries to the child. “There was bruising and swelling to the area.”
The dog in question, originally named Happy and later renamed Max, was adopted from the Fluvanna SPCA May 2, and, according to the parents of Noah Viemeister, had not shown “any indication of aggression” until the incident.
However, the report notes that the dog had been returned to the FSPCA twice before the Viemeisters adopted him, and the animal custody records for those adoptions say the dog was aggressive toward other animals, although in the first case this was crossed out and replaced with a different reason for the return.
According to the FSPCA, neither of the earlier families thought Happy was an aggressive dog and Happy played with elementary-aged children without showing aggression. The FSPCA euthanized Happy May 19.
Kelly Crawford, operations manager at the Fluvanna SPCA from 2012 to 2013, says that dog aggression is a common issue at shelters, but she believes the FSPCA is not handling these situations effectively.
“It’s all in how it’s managed, and I don’t think the people running the shelter at this point have the training or the knowledge to make this a better situation,” Crawford says, calling some of these incidents “borderline unethical.”
Tony Borash, president of the Fluvanna SPCA Board of Directors, does not believe training is an issue, and says the shelter has volunteers who have helped with difficult evaluations and with staff training. Over the past few months, the staff has learned to listen for particular types of behaviors and identify those that signify pain, aggression or play, he says. Borash says these incidents have been “generally unfortunate circumstances.”
The child biting is one of several incidents that have plagued the Fluvanna SPCA in the past year. In March, the shelter advertised through the Metro Richmond Pet Savers Facebook page seven pit bulls in need of behavioral training. The dogs had been at the shelter for roughly a year when the post was made, and most of the dogs were described positively aside from their aggressive behavior. Eva, a 6-year-old pit bull, was described as “great with all people…sweet and calm” but very dog-aggressive.
Shortly after a commenter said the animals needed to be “reevaluated with someone who knows what they’re doing,” the post was removed, not because the descriptions were inaccurate but because “the way in which it was worded made it sound like we were trying to find homes for them,” says Borash, who notes the shelter was aware that the dogs were not adoptable in their current state. “We were looking for rehab centers for them,” he says.
He also mentions that six of the 10 pit bulls the shelter took in for the Brendan Mathis dog fighting court case were euthanized because of their poor behavioral evaluations and the inability of other shelters to take them in for training, while two of the remaining have since been transferred to an out-of-state rescue facility.
Cheryl Faulkenbury, an animal behaviorist and former office employee at the FSPCA in 2010, found two of these pit bulls jumping at their cages and barking when she visited the shelter in July, a situation she thought should have been dealt with through euthanization.
“When you leave an animal in a cage for a year and a half, that’s not enrichment,” Faulkenbury says. “That’s just moving from one cage to another.”
Borash notes that it was not the shelter’s choice to keep the pit bulls locked in their kennels. Rather, the case required that the dogs be made available to the defense attorney when he needed to perform evaluations on them, allowing only staff members to interact with the dogs.
The most recent public outcry against the FSPCA came when Ollie, a Lab mix adopted from the shelter, pulled away from his owner on a walk and attacked a 12-week-old cocker spaniel puppy, Max, in early October.
Florence Buchholz, who had adopted Ollie that same day, was pulled to the ground by Ollie’s sudden movement and required stitches in her mouth because of the incident. Despite her injury, Buchholz says the incident was not a case of aggression.
“He was shaking the little dog in his mouth like a toy,” Buchholz says, “but he wasn’t barking or growling. He didn’t bite him and he wasn’t aggressive. I think he was just exuberant and needed a stronger person walking with him.”
Lynette Lauer, Buchholz’s neighbor, was present when Ollie was adopted and described him as a friendly, goofy dog. “He was romping around the neighborhood like a little pony,” she adds.
Lauer, who also works at an animal shelter for small dogs, says that incidents like this happen frequently and are not always cases of aggression. She explains that if small dogs are lifted off the ground, as Max was by his owner, larger animals will often try to grab the dog out of curiosity.
“[Ollie] weighs about 70 pounds and [Max] weighs about 5 pounds,” Lauer says, “I think if [Ollie] had really wanted to hurt the dog, he would have hurt him.”
Rose Lemaster, an animal rights activist and animal rescue volunteer, disagrees that Ollie was trying to play, and says it was “absolutely a case of aggression.” Noting that Ollie pulled his owner to the ground, Lemaster questions why the FSPCA chose to adopt out such a young dog to an older client like Buchholz.
“I’m not saying he needs to be euthanized, but he does need to be treated as a dangerous dog,” Lemaster says.
Borash says the shelter goes through a long questionnaire with potential adopters to match dogs with their new owner’s lifestyle. He says it was not the pairing that was a problem.
“While Ollie had a lot of energy, once Florence had returned Ollie, she had gone to adopt another dog,” Borash says. “What I was told is that the beagle she adopted pulled her down again.”
FSPCA Manager Meaghan Szwejkowski, who began her role as manager in July, was also surprised by Ollie’s attack, calling it an “out of the blue” scenario not indicated by Ollie’s behavioral testing both before and after the attack.
“Even when he was returned to the shelter, we wanted to do as much data collection as we could,” Szwejkowski says. “We tested him with another adult dog, four puppies and four kittens, all of which he was very playful with.”
Following a June Fluvanna County inspection report that recorded “significant findings of noncompliance” at the shelter, many believe changes need to be made.
The concerns raised in the inspection report, namely that dogs were found in an outdoor pen during the rain and that certain floors and walls could not be adequately cleaned, have already been dealt with, says Borash.
“[Dogs] do not get left out [in the pen]. They don’t live out there,” Borash says. “When the inspector had arrived, the dogs were outside while their pens were getting cleaned out.”
Faulkenbury raises a different concern and worries that the shelter’s no-kill status functions as a potential incentive to ignore warning signs in a dog and adopt out an aggressive animal. To maintain no-kill status, 90 percent of animals at the shelter must be adopted out or moved to a different shelter rather than euthanized, “so it becomes about the numbers,” Faulkenbury says.
The shelter is “not actively trying to keep dogs that would be a danger to our community so that we can reach some level of the no-kill line,” says Borash. “We’re at a point now where we can’t have people pointing fingers, we need people extending hands. Come together with us and help us because [finding dogs a good home] is all we’re trying to do.”
Virginia’s coywolves, a hybrid between western coyotes and eastern timber wolves, are often black in color. Also called eastern coyotes, they are 66 percent coyote, 24 percent wolf and 10 percent dog. Photo: Jon Way
A lone, gray pickup truck with its headlights off rolls along the gravel road in the pale light of a full moon. The truck stops along a tree line in front of a long, broad field and two camouflaged men get out. They close the doors slowly so as to not make any noise. The men sling their rifles over their shoulders and whisper about where to begin. Down past the woods? Over at the neighboring farm?
A long, chilling howl erupts from the woods across the freshly cut hay field in front of them, followed by a chorus of yips and more howling. Mike Hummell watches and listens. He zips up his jacket against the cold. “You want to hunt that?” he asks his hunting partner, Marshall Koontz.
Hummell and Koontz are specialist hunters who respond to calls from concerned residents about predators preying on their flocks of sheep, herds of cows, etc. Working pro bono last week, they had received a call from a farmer concerned about a top-level predator that has recently arrived in Virginia—the coywolf. Also called the eastern coyote, the coywolf is a hybrid of western coyotes and eastern timber wolves, and it may represent an entirely new species.
For most of human history, wolves have been feared and hated. They ate livestock and occasionally attacked humans. Virginia’s first government bounty on wolves was enacted at Jamestown in 1632. As settlers moved west, the slaughter accompanied them across the continent and bounties continued to be paid in some states into the early 20th century. The removal of wolves enabled the expansion of the coyote.
For thousands of years, coyotes were restricted to the American West in part because of competition with wolves. The larger predators attack coyotes to protect their territories from another canid, which competes somewhat for prey. With the wolves gone, coyotes began to expand their range. As young, lone coyotes went in search of new territories they sometimes encountered remnant populations of eastern timber wolves. In small dating pools, love blossomed between two species that would normally fight.
The hybrids are larger than western coyotes and smaller than eastern timber wolves. A pure-blooded male western coyote tops out at under 30 pounds. A male timber wolf averages around 67 pounds. Male coywolves typically weigh in at around 35 pounds, especially if they manage to live for more than two years. None of these animals is large enough to threaten a healthy adult human.
Janis Jaquith, a long-time resident of Free Union, had her first encounter with what she believes was a coywolf in summer 2004. She watched her flock of eight guinea fowl walking toward her house at dusk with a coyote following them.
“That animal didn’t care that I was there at all,” she says. “It was just kind of sauntering maybe six feet behind the last guinea fowl. So I went over to it and I clapped my hands together and said, ‘Get out of here you bastard, get out of here!’ This thing didn’t care at all. A dog would have been spooked and gone away. …It looked over at me out of the corner of its eye like a teenager and then kind of raised its chin and slowly sauntered off to the side into the woods.”
Within a year, nocturnal predators had wiped out most of the flock.
Scientific research into Virginia’s coywolf population began in 2011. Dr. Marcella Kelly, professor of wildlife studies at Virginia Tech, has been contracted by Virginia’s Department of Game and Inland Fisheries to study the diets of coywolves. Complaints from deer hunters of dwindling prey in Bath and Rockingham counties prompted the agency to look into whether coywolves are responsible.
“We have the breakdown of their diet,” Dr. Kelly says. “It’s 45 percent deer. Deer is the primary thing in their diet; voles is the second-largest component. Believe it or not, the next two are mast (edible parts of woody plants, such as acorns and rose hips) and insects. Vegetation, blueberries, stuff like that. We’ve got squirrels, rabbits, and the last one is birds. …I think you do have to worry about pets. They’re a predator like any other predator. They’ll take a pet if it’s there and they are hungry. With sheep, there is an issue. There are problem animals. It’s not that the population as a whole does this, but some individuals specialize in it.”
The coyote hunters have their own opinions about the eating habits of coyotes, owing to years of observation of their behavior and picking apart their scat.
Specialist hunter Marshall Koontz responds to calls fron concerned residents about predators, such as coywolves, preying on their livestock. He said he’s seen an uptick in the local coyote population in the last 10 years. Photo: Amy Jackson
“Oddly enough, they eat more cow pies than cows,” says Hummell as he sets up a shoulder-high tripod during his moonlight hunt. “Everybody thinks that coyotes eat nothing but meat. They actually are more of a fruit-eater than anything. One of their favorite foods is persimmons, oddly enough…granted you are gonna see them eat rabbits, they eat small game, they love fox. It’s one of their favorite food groups, the red fox. They don’t mess with gray fox too much because they can’t catch them. Gray fox can climb a tree.”
To the top of the tripod Hummell fastens his rifle, a suppressed AR-15 with a night vision scope. Koontz sets up a bolt action Remington Model 700 on his own tripod and flips on a thermal imaging system. Blowing a tubular caller dangling from a string around his neck, Hummell begins producing a series of long howls. Koontz follows with a series of yips from his own caller. The pair adds up to a convincing facsimile of a rival pack of coyotes. Within seconds, the real coyotes begin to respond. Closer, this time. They are on the move.
“Typically, people get a misconception,” Koontz says. “They say, ‘I heard 10!’ But when they’re out moving back and forth, two can sound like a dozen. …Their core area is usually gonna be in a thick, dense spot, abundant in small game to where they don’t have to fight for food. That’s why when you hear them barking at each other, two different packs, it’s this pack here is trying to intimidate that pack.”
Hummell and Koontz continue to challenge the pack that is audibly moving toward the tripods and rifles. A light switches on in a house about 300 yards away. Shouting is heard from inside.
People worry about coyotes: farmers with livestock, families with pets and children. But Kelly says attacks on humans are rare.
“As for humans, there have been very few attacks, but they’ve happened,” she says. “I don’t know that anyone has ever been killed by a coyote. In those attack situations, there’s usually extenuating circumstances. (There is) very little risk in terms of human attacks.”
The distinct sound of a screen door slaps shut from the nearby house. A yelping chorus of beagles erupts. Hummell and Koontz watch and wait to see if the dogs will deter the coywolves from coming within range. Even as he peers through his night vision scope with his finger hovering on the outside of the trigger guard, Hummel advises a certain amount of tolerance for coywolves.
“If you come into an area where it’s really quiet and you know there’s coyote activity that usually means that you have a very big one there, the alpha,” he says. “The alpha is something that keeps other coyotes in check. …Let’s say you have goats over here and one goat is being eaten every month, month and a half. (If you) shoot that alpha, he’s what’s keeping these coyotes in check because they’re not gonna mess with him. You shoot him and these other packs no longer have a sense of intimidation. They’re gonna come in; they’re gonna clear your goats out. They’re gonna eat every one. It’s one of these things where you need to pick and choose your battles. …This pack over here isn’t allowed to come in here. That’s why you still have goats.”
Science is bearing out some of what Hummel has observed in the field. Kelly’s research shows that poorly planned hunting can make a coyote problem worse.
“When you take out coyotes, it leaves this big space and more coyotes come in,” Kelly says. “Then they have a really big litter the next year. It does not make a big difference when you take out a lot of animals. You can try, and people are trying with bounties. The coyotes in Bath County have about a 50 percent chance of living for six months [due to hunting by humans], but their reproduction is really fast. When Chicago did a big cull a few years ago, they had litter sizes of 14 pups the next year.” The average litter size is six.
Most eastern coyotes are genetically about 66 percent coyote, 24 percent wolf and about 10 percent of DNA originating from domestic dogs. The genetic contribution from dogs is relatively low because dogs may go into heat and become pregnant at any time, while wolves and coyotes have a reproductive cycle closely timed to the annual calendar. (Pups born in the late summer or fall will probably not survive in the wild through winter.) A 2009 study showed that all black wolves and coyotes in North America owe that gene to hybridization with European dogs. Virginia’s coywolves are often black, demonstrating their ancestry.
The coywolf diet mainly consists of deer (45 percent), along with voles, vegetation, squirrels, rabbits and birds. The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries commissioned a study in Rockingham and Bath counties to determine if coywolves there were responsible for a declining deer population. Photo: Jon Way
In the course of her research, Kelly noticed a slight advantage to being a black coywolf. “We had one black coyote who lasted for years [without being killed by hunters], we think because he looked like a dog and had a [tracking]collar on.”
Hummell and Koontz listen as their unseen prey changes direction. Previously on a trajectory headed for their guns, the coyotes turn away as the pack of beagles does its job. As the hunters know all too well, coywolves are not shy about approaching human settlements.
“I hear coyotes every night, their yips quickly escalating into an unnerving crescendo and then falling silent,” writes Albemarle County resident Lilia Fuquen in an e-mail. “Sometimes I think they must be less than a quarter mile away; they sound like they’re closing in on the house.” She lives nine miles outside of Charlottesville’s city limits.
“During the summer of 2014, our flock of hens began to dwindle, quickly,” writes Fuquen. “They were free-range hens that had survived several years, but over the course of a week, half the flock was taken. Foxes and coyotes had discovered them. One afternoon, I was gardening out front when I heard one of the surviving hens squawking at the back of the house. I tore around the house at a full sprint and saw a tall, lanky, mangy-looking coyote lurking on the back porch, less than four feet from the back door of the house. It stopped, looked at me and just stood there. After a split-second, I began screaming wildly and flailing my arms about, running toward it. It turned slowly, glanced back at me over its shoulder, and in no hurry, sauntered down off the porch and away into the fields beyond the house.”
“I know farmers and friends and they’ve complained about them a little bit,” whispers Koontz as his quarry disappears into the night. “Most of them around here you don’t hear about them attacking the cows because they put more bulls in every lot, which seems to keep the attacks down. …Typically coyotes don’t fool with the cows a lot unless they’re sick or getting ready to calve.”
With their diets incorporating so much whitetail deer, it may seem like the coywolves may be filling the ecological niche left when wolves were exterminated from Virginia in the 1800s. But Kelly doesn’t think it’s that simple. Unlike wolves, “coyotes are sort of nature’s garbage collectors,” she says. “They will eat a lot of different things. We’ve lost so many predators. They’re not necessarily filling the wolf niche. Wolves hunted in a fundamentally different way from coyotes and can take much larger prey.”
While coyotes are omnivores that dabble in a lot of small game, wolves specialize in hunting animals of more than 100 pounds. In Virginia, they likely ate a lot of elk and bison. The last Virginia bison was killed in 1801 by Daniel Boone’s youngest son, Nathan, and elk have only just been reintroduced to deep southwest Virginia. The ecological context for pure-blooded wolves, a natural predator of the coyote, to exist in the Commonwealth of Virginia has disappeared.
And it isn’t clear that coywolves are killing all of the deer that they are eating. Kelly’s method for studying their diet involves picking apart scat to see what types of hair and bone fragments are in it. Virginia’s steady supply of road kill could be providing some amount of that deer hair and bone found in the samples being studied. One of the most surprising results of Kelly’s study has been finding that Virginia bobcat populations had been significantly underestimated. Many samples of scat that had been visually identified as coming from coyotes or foxes turned out to be from bobcats. Some of the hypothesized new predation on deer may have come from bobcats or other predators.
“Bears have increased dramatically in the last 10 years,” Kelly says. “The predator community here is pretty amazing. We took scat samples and analyzed them and 50 percent were bobcats. The number of bobcats is pretty large. It’s a pretty interesting system with this increase of bears, introduction of coyotes and we have a lot more bobcats than anyone realized. “
There is no official estimate of the total population of coyotes in Albemarle County. The mixture of habitats and available food is different from the steep wooded mountains in the region Kelly is studying. But the consensus among local coyote hunters is that roughly there is a pack of coywolves ranging from a lone alpha male to up to a dozen individual coyotes for every five square miles in Albemarle County (726 square miles). If that is true, that would be about 145 groups of coyotes in the county, with a total population somewhere between 500 and 1,000. Albemarle’s mixture of woods and cultivated fields offers an ideal mix of habitat for coywolves.
The pair of coyote hunters quietly pack up their tripods, night vision gear and rifles—time to move on. They combat sub- freezing temperatures in two more locations known to harbor problem coyotes before giving up for the night. Repeatedly, packs of domestic hunting dogs ran off the coywolves as the hunters were calling them in.
“Probably about 10 years ago we started seeing [coyotes] a lot and it’s just exploded,” says Koontz. “I have seen, deer hunting, when I’ve retrieved a deer I’ve seen the coyotes on it instantly. They go after the weak. They don’t go after the strong, per se—unless they’re really hungry. Each coyote is different. Some are aggressive, some aren’t.”
Ristorante Al Dente and Al Hamraa owner Karim Sellam (right) teamed up with Alan Doukan for Mezza, the latest addition to Charlottesville’s small-plate dining options. Photo: Rammelkamp Foto
New tapas venture has no frontier
There’s a new small-plates restaurant in town, but the owners promise it’s “not just another tapas place.” Featuring a menu with dishes from every corner of the world, Mezza Tapas & Bar is the newest addition to the ever-growing selection of restaurants on West Main.
“Here we have no frontier with the tapas,” says chef and co-owner Karim Sellam, who also owned and operated Ristorante Al Dente (which rebranded as Al Dente Pasta Cafe in 2014) and Al Hamraa, both of which closed this year. “It’s East meets West, with no borders. That makes tapas more interesting.”
Sellam teamed up with Alan Doukan, a long-time friend who works at Rosewood Village Assisted Living. Doukan has “always liked the restaurant business,” he says, and the two spent months redesigning the space inside what used to be L’etoile and coming up with an extensive menu.
The list of available small plates is divided into “for the table” items, which include marinated olives, grilled polenta and bread, plus categories for vegetarians, vegans, meat-eaters and fish-eaters. Each section features dishes inspired by different countries, such as France, Turkey, Spain, Italy and Morocco. Carnivores can go all-out with the cheese-stuffed, prosciutto-wrapped dates or meatballs with organic eggs, and vegetarians and vegans have options like the roma tomato pizza and Moroccan eggplant dip. Seafood plates include grilled squid, marinated anchovies and tuna steak, and last week’s special was a surf ‘n’ turf featuring beef tongue and octopus.
At the bar, Doukan and Sellam want to focus on wine and cocktails, with a small list of beer. The lengthy wine list includes bottles from all over the world, and the cocktail menu features nearly two dozen martinis and house drinks, like the port mojito, gingertini and strawberry martini.
Mezza made its debut about three weeks ago, and the owners say they’re already seeing customers come back a second and third time. With local art on the walls and long, communal tables in the dining room, the space was designed with community in mind.
“We have people come in and sit down and just start talking, and it’s a good feeling,” Sellam says. “We are a family environment. The food, the wine—it’s a cultural, social experience.”
For more information, visit www.mezzacville.com.
Lunch relaunch
The little restaurant at the corner of Market Street and Meade Avenue is getting another facelift. Dan Heilberg, who originally owned The Lunchbox, stepped back last year when it was rebranded as The Boneyard, a café focused on Southern-inspired, grub-like barbecue. But as of November 27, Heilberg has partnered with Steven Martin (whose restaurant resume includes The Box and Two Guys Tacos), taken the space back under his wing and given it a new name and a new focus.
Introducing Holly’s Deli & Pub, a classic lunch-and-dinner spot named after Heilberg’s mother that will offer $7 sandwich platters (with chips, choice of side and a pickle), everyday happy hour specials, late-night delivery and a giant screen for sports fans. The idea is to simplify the menu and create a space that allows you to either get in and out for lunch as quickly as you need, or park yourself in front of the game with a beer for as long as you want. Oh, and for those of you who miss The Lunchbox’s menu, good news—the Philly cheesesteak that Heilberg says was a favorite is back.
Mike London is well-regarded by his players, not so much by UVA students.
Photo Jack Looney
Coming off of six seasons as head coach of the Virginia Cavaliers football team, Mike London resigned November 29, the day after the team lost its last game of the season against rival Virginia Tech—for the 12th consecutive year—leaving the Cavaliers with a 4-8 record for the year.
After the game, students painted “Fire Mike London” on Beta Bridge over the orange and blue “Beat Tech”—a recurring theme this semester whenever the team has lost.
Someone also allegedly hacked into the Virginia Athletics Twitter account and tweeted that London had been fired before most fans even got to their cars.
In the wake of London’s resignation, students have taken to the Internet. On the Virginia Cavaliers football Wikipedia page, the head coach has been switched to Eleanor Roosevelt, Angelina Jolie, Frank Beamer, John Cena and even Albus Dumbledore within the past few days. Scott Stadium has been changed to several different places on Grounds, including rooms in the Chemistry Building as well as in New Cabell Hall.
Adam Hawes, a third-year student at UVA and a longtime fan of the team, says he was hopeful that Virginia football’s losing seasons would turn around when he first came to the university, but that the student body has been frustrated with the decision to keep London as head coach for years.
“A lot of students thought he should have been gone two seasons ago,” Hawes says. “There wasn’t an increase in vitriol towards him this year except for the fact that the athletics department kept stringing him along despite what was clearly a losing record.” He cites game management and penalties as “glaring problems” under London.
Craig Littlepage, UVA director of athletics, said in a statement Sunday that London had been “an outstanding representative of the University of Virginia” and praised his ability to positively influence the student-athletes on the team.
However, he also said, “We expect our football program to compete for the Coastal Division title on an annual basis, which puts us in a position to win the ACC championship and be competitive nationally.” Littlepage declined to comment further until a new coach has been selected.
Mary Rockwell, a first-year student at UVA and longtime fan, is glad about the coaching change, calling it a “no-brainer” after the Cavaliers’ fourth straight losing season. She says football season is something she looks forward to every year, but that UVA’s losing culture has affected the fan base poorly, especially for out-of-state students who don’t share her in-state ardor.
Because of the team’s losing record, “it was hard to get them to stay” if UVA was losing or the weather was bad, she says.
“I think people just go in expecting losses now, and I think that’s a really unhealthy state to be in for a fan base,” Hawes says. “The fact that there have been so many losses has really diminished fan enthusiasm. It shows a kind of lack of caring for the program. They’re not willing to make changes when there needs to be change.”
While many students seem glad that a new coach will be coming to UVA, some Virginia football players have taken to Twitter to thank London for all he has done for them. Quarterback Matt Johns tweeted to London, “It has always been so much bigger than football and I can’t thank you enough.” Other players also joined in, including tailback Taquan “Smoke” Mizzell, to express gratitude to their coach.
Looking forward, both Hawes and Rockwell are hopeful that a new coach will give UVA what it needs to become a competitive team again.
“You can see by Beta Bridge that students want a change,” Rockwell says.
Billy Mays pulled in 378 votes in his run for sheriff, a fraction of his opponent's more than 2,000 votes. Publicity photo
William Everette “Billy” Mays, the Nelson sheriff’s office investigator who led the Alexis Murphy missing teen case, was indicted on two counts of election fraud November 24. Mays ran for sheriff and lost to David Hill in the November election. Both men were the subjects of Virginia State Police investigations after a private citizen complained that neither lived in Nelson County.
According to a release by Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman, named special prosecutor in the case, the state police investigation determined that sheriff-elect Hill did reside in the county and no charges were brought against him.
A grand jury indicted Mays for a felony count of making a false statement on an election form and a misdemeanor charge of willful neglect of election laws duties. He’s scheduled to appear in court January 21.
Similar charges were lodged in 2011 against Charlottesville City Council candidate James Halfaday, who resided in Albemarle County when he ran for office in the city. Halfaday was charged with four felony counts, pleaded guilty to one and served 60 days in jail.
Grand Banks duo Davis Salisbury and Tyler Magill have been partners in drone music since 2001. Their first label release, QB4: 1877-1896, is due on cassette from Oxtail Recordings on December 5. Photo: Publicity photo
You can’t cover a Grand Banks song. Don’t even think about it. It’s not a question of chops or instrumental know-how. It’s about the unique relationship between the two musicians in the band, the growth of their friendship over the years and their approach to making sound together. “If somebody asks me what Grand Banks is, I call it textural improvisation,” says Davis Salisbury. With Tyler Magill, Salisbury has been playing music as Grand Banks since 2001. The two started the project while playing in other local bands together, christening their endeavor with a name that had been rattling around in Magill’s head for a while.
The band has evolved over the years, incorporating different instruments on and off, depending on what interests the duo at any given time. The sound has changed as well, shifting from assaulting noise to Grand Bank’s current approach, which touches on the description of sometimes melodic drone music. As in any creative relationship, there is a substantial amount of give and take between Salisbury and Magill.
“When we have been playing for a while, we’ll get to a point where I can’t tell who’s making the sounds, it’s just kind of manifesting itself,” Salisbury says. “That’s a really interesting creative place to be in. You’re in it and you like it and you want it to keep happening. But you’re also fighting the urge to make something happen. Getting too excited while playing in Grand Banks can often be a detriment to the music.”
From the audience, the experience of a Grand Banks show asks only for openness, curiosity and patience. Indeed, there remains a sustained interest in the band, both locally and further afield. “We have these people who are really supportive of it over the years. They just get it and appreciate that we make the effort,” says Salisbury. “I get to play for people who are willing to take the chance, to live inside the sound and try to appreciate where we’re coming from with it.”
Passages of sound can last for minutes and feel like hours, but the reverse is true as well. “The ability to play with time and people’s experience of time is fascinating to me and that’s really the only reason I play music,” admits Salisbury.
Similar to meditation, when a Grand Banks show works, it unlocks a way of being that seems removed from space and time. There is only the immensity of the sound, with little distraction from Salisbury and Magill, who are fairly introverted in their performance styles. “It doesn’t look like we’re doing anything,” says Magill. “We would play the same show whether there were people there or not.”
Now, as the band approaches its 15-year mark, Grand Banks is celebrating its first label release. Sure, it has released CD-Rs in the past, but nothing on a label. The album, titled QB4: 1877-1896, is comprised of 4-track and reel-to-reel recordings, and will be released on cassette this month by Oxtail Recordings. “It’s archival material in that we recorded it in 2001 or 2002, but we dug it up and it’s all been re-contextualized and collaged,” says Magill.
You won’t find anything resembling a single on a Grand Banks release. “I consider us primarily a live band,” says Salisbury. “We have a few things that we return to, but for the most part we just improvise live. So, even with these recordings, they are improvisations, but ones done without an audience.”
In the back of his mind, Salisbury admits that he always thought Grand Banks would play a show one day and the duo would meet a guy—maybe one who knew a guy—who would ask to release a Grand Banks album on a label. Recently, at one of his solo performances as Dais Queue, Salisbury met Mike Nigro from Oxtail Recordings, who expressed interest in releasing an album for him. Though Nigro’s interest was initially in Dais Queue, one thing led to another, and the forthcoming Grand Banks album found a home.
A cassette release show is scheduled for this week at an unannounced location, with Nigro and other musicians opening for the band—but it won’t be at a formal venue. In fact, the bigger local venues rarely invite Grand Banks to perform, and the pair almost never plays more than a few shows in Charlottesville per year.
“They don’t take chances on stuff like us,” says Salisbury. “I have no interest in being involved in shows where the main priority is making sure enough people show up to justify the fact that the venue booked the bands. I think it’s cultivating the side of music I’m not interested in participating in anymore.”
Salisbury and Magill continue to focus on what’s important to them as Grand Banks, challenging one another in their improvisations while creating work that they find interesting.
“Collaborative art is really hard, and it’s not fun all the time,” Davis says. “It’s a struggle, but that’s what’s been special about Grand Banks. Life gets hard for us, but Grand Banks is always easy. There are no words to express how much I get out of playing in Grand Banks. It’s one of the things I do that will never not be special. And I just hope everybody finds stuff like that in their life.”
