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The show goes on at Lockn

Widespread Panic's Sunday performance was a crows favorite, according to a Lockn' spokesperson.

Organizers of the Lockn’ Music Festival, which traditionally runs through a long weekend of Thursday to Sunday, canceled this year’s Thursday performances due to a severe thunderstorm that caused damage to the festival’s parking and campground area on September 9.

The festival began Friday morning and still drew its usual 25,000 guests, according to Lockn’ spokesperson Ken Weinstein.

“Those days were exasperating, exhausting and exhilarating,” Weinstein writes in an e-mail. “But everyone pulled together—from the crew who worked around the clock to the bands who were accommodating with their schedules to our neighbors who assisted stranded festival-goers, to all of the fans who looked out for one another.”

He says some of the best, most well-liked performances by festival-goers were Robert Plant, Mad Dogs & Englishmen, Billy & the Kids with Bob Weir and Widespread Panic with Jimmy Cliff.

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Bernie Sanders’ campaign trail stops in Charlottesville

Bernie Sanders, 2016 Democratic presidential hopeful, stopped by UVA for a brief interview. Photo courtesy of the University of Virginia's Miller Center

Bernie Sanders, a Democratic candidate for the 2016 presidential race, addressed the economy, healthcare, foreign policy, environmental issues and student debt and tuition in his most recent stop in Charlottesville. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Doug Blackmon interviewed Sanders at UVA’s Miller Center September 14 for a taping of “American Forum.”

Though just over 100 spectators were able to watch the taping live in the studio, the Miller Center’s lawn filled with people, mainly UVA students, who hoped to catch a glimpse of the presidential hopeful and longest serving independent senator in U.S. history. Upon arriving, Sanders addressed the large crowd of fans, many of which were outfitted in Bernie 2016 gear, and loud cheers erupted from the lawn.

“No president can do it alone—we need a political revolution of millions of people,” he said in the interview, noting that Hillary Clinton is currently the leading Democratic candidate according to the polls. “We have the energy. We are gaining more and more support.”

Known for connecting with a younger crowd, Sanders said 80 percent of young people did not vote in the last election, calling them “asleep at the wheel” and encouraging everyone in attendance to join his democratic socialist society.

On foreign policy, he said, “I am not the former secretary of state of the United States of America.” Unlike Hillary Clinton, who was a senator while he was a congressman, he said he voted against the war in Iraq and much of what he feared would happen in the Middle East, like the destabilization of that region, turned out to be true. Although he has less experience than Clinton, he concluded, his “judgment has been pretty good.”

He also noted that his presidential campaign aims to support the working class better than Clinton’s and that his competition hasn’t taken a stance on Trans-Pacific Partnership or the Keystone Pipeline, which Sanders heavily opposed, or climate change, which he says is undeniably caused by humans and a threat to the earth.

Addressing Blackmon’s question about what Sanders would want his presidential cabinet to look like, he said, “I want my top administrators to look like America. We need the diversity of America in the top levels of government.” He said he doesn’t want all Wall Street workers in his cabinet, but rather people who understand the needs of the working class.

“I don’t trust Wall Street,” he said.

Sanders said he supports raising minimum wage to $15 nationwide, but acknowledged it could potentially harm some small businesses. He believes healthcare should be a right given to all people, not just a privilege. And while he doesn’t think every American needs a college degree to succeed, he thinks free tuition should be given to anyone who desires a job that requires higher education.

Blackmon fudged reading the teleprompter while signing off after the show, and the journalist asked to cut and redo the signoff. “Oh, you use a teleprompter?” Sanders joked. “Where’s mine?”

This episode of “American Forum” will air on PBS on October 11 at 7:30am and 1:30pm, as well as the WORLD channel at those times on October 14.

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UPDATED: Lockn’ to open Friday morning

Photo: Tom Daly

The Lockn’ organizers have officially announced that all Thursday performances at the music festival have been cancelled, due to a severe thunderstorm that caused damage to the festival’s parking and campground area Wednesday evening.

It is now scheduled to open “first thing” Friday morning, according to organizers who are also offering places campers can stay until the festival opens:

They say River Ridge Mall has plenty of parking and restaurants at 3405 Candlers Mountain Road. Attendees are welcome to stay overnight in the parking lot of the James River Conference Center at 400 Court Street and, as well as at the Hillcats Stadium at 3176 Fort Avenue.

“Despite the inconvenience the storm has caused, we count ourselves lucky that everyone is safe and that we have three great days of music ahead of us,” organizers wrote in a press release. “We look forward to seeing you soon.”

 

 

 

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Old drug: New dangerous effects

This “spice” product, which is marketed as potpourri, was confiscated by local police. Photo courtesy of the Charlottesville Police Department

Police say the presence of spice, a form of synthetic marijuana, is not new to Charlottesville or Albemarle County, however, they’re now seeing new behaviors associated with people using the drug.

Charlottesville Police Lieutenant Joe Hatter, who oversees the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement Task Force, says spice has been in the area for the last five to seven years. People use spice to mimic the effects of marijuana, or because they think it won’t show up in drug tests, Hatter says, adding there’s no way to know what’s in any particular spice blend, but ingredients could show up in tests.

“What we’re seeing now is definitely not mimicking marijuana,” Hatter says. “People are walking down the street nude after smoking this.” People who smoke spice have been found disoriented, passed out, sweating profusely, vomiting or convulsing, he adds.

Local police received at least 15 calls last month for suspected spice usage, and the majority of those calls involved people who needed medical attention, Hatter says.

Dr. Chris Holstege, who has been a UVA professor in the school of medicine since 1999, is the director of medical toxicology at UVA Medical Center. He remembers the last large outbreak of synthetic cannabinoid use in 2009. He says patients then were agitated, confused, delirious and combative, and UVA doctors believe the drug induced the first psychotic break for some of the patients.

When Virginia made these products illegal, Holstege says consequently fewer use incidents were reported. It has also made patients more reluctant to tell doctors whether they have used them, so it’s hard for the task force to track how many currently are using the drug. In the first quarter of this year, Holstege says nine cases of synthetic cannabinoid use were reported, followed by an influx of 29 cases in the second quarter of the year. This quarter is on a trajectory for about 60 reported cases, according to Holstege.

Though spice is traditionally known to attract a younger crowd, Hatter says he’s received no reports of people using the drug at the University of Virginia or in local high schools, but rather people in their 20s and 30s near downtown Charlottesville.

When the drug first appeared in the area, Hatter says police found that a synthetic marijuana product was being sold at area convenience stores. After confiscating a product and confronting a clerk at one of the stores, police learned that the clerk didn’t realize what it was. Spice, K2 and other synthetic cannabinoids are often marketed as herbal incense blends or potpourri, making them more dangerous for people who don’t know what they are, Hatter says. People now tend to buy them online, where they’re easy to find, or from someone on the street, according to Hatter.

“The Internet has opened Pandora’s box,” agrees Holstege.

According to Hatter, police have done their best to “crack down” on dealers and users and to get the word out about the dangers of spice, but it may not be going away any time soon.

“Leave it alone,” Hatter says. “Fear it.”

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Man killed in first homicide of the year

More than 100 people gathered outside the home of Jason Lee Shifflett, Charlottesville’s first suspected homicide victim of the year, for a candlelight vigil September 3.

Shifflett, 31, was shot and killed in his Carlton Avenue trailer home just before 1am that day, police say. His killer has not yet been identified.

Shifflett’s friend, Ira Morris, who is a tattoo artist at Scotty Rock’s Inkslingers in Ruckersville, agreed to donate half of the proceeds from any tattoo he inks in Shifflett’s memory to the family for funeral expenses. At press time, Morris said he had given seven memorial tattoos, which equalled $600 worth of donations. Morris gave an extra $400 and says he wrote Shifflett’s mother, Robin, a check for $1,000 on September 7.

Charlottesville police spokesman Steve Upman says there are no updates at this time. He asks anyone with more information on the shooting to contact Detective Bradley Pleasants at 434-970-3374.

Over Labor Day weekend, a man was charged with first degree murder for killing his wife on Jefferson Drive in the Lake Monticello subdivision. On September 5, Lieutenant David Wells with the Fluvanna County Sheriff’s Office named the deceased woman as Tayler Burruss and said her husband, Franklin Burruss, is being held without bond at the Central Virginia Regional Jail.

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Crozet man killed by train

Matthew Shannon was killed on the Crozet train tracks on September 2. Photo courtesy of his family

On September 2 around 8:25pm, Albemarle police say a 22-year-old male was hit and killed by a train in Crozet about 100 yards east of Starr Hill Brewery.

This man has been identified as Matthew Michael Shannon of Crozet. No criminal activity is suspected, according to police spokesperson Carter Johnson.

“We’re coping with family and friends,” Shannon’s brother, John, says.

Shannon graduated from Western Albemarle High School in 2011 and took some classes at Piedmont Virginia Community College, before his brother says he stopped to focus on his love of cooking and art. He was working as a chef at Fardowners Restaurant in Crozet.

Aside from his love of cooking, his brother says he was an avid piano player and loved painting. He used these mediums to “share his unique view of the world with everyone,” and he “made it his life’s goal and passion to share his love of life and the beauty contained within it with everyone he met,” John Shannon says. “His loss has been deeply felt by family and friends.”

The funeral service will be held at 3pm Sunday, at Teague Funeral Home.

This article was updated at 8:05 a.m. September 5.

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The sound of Costco: Neighbors fret over unwanted noise

Donald Healy, who lives in a townhome on Commonwealth Drive behind Costco, says deafening noise coming from the fans on top of the wholesale store prohibits him from enjoying the solitude of his backyard. Photo by Martyn Kyle

“It’s like a twin-engine plane” is how an Albemarle County resident and local teacher describes the noise that now overpowers the quiet bustle and birdsong of his once-peaceful backyard.

Donald Healy and his wife live in a townhome on Commonwealth Drive, behind the recently opened Costco in the Stonefield shopping center. Their home is situated atop a hill, putting it in line with the roof of the massive wholesale store, which is decorated with an array of heating and cooling units.

The Healys were accustomed to unwanted noise since the construction of the big-box store began, but they were under the impression that, when finished, the neighborhood’s ambiance would be quieter.

On the day of Costco’s grand opening, Healy says the fans running on top of the building sounded like a small airport.

“It was deafening,” he says. “Sometimes you sit out there and it’s just too much to bear.” But it’s not just his backyard, he says, acknowledging that several neighbors are even closer to the new store. Even inside in Healy’s two back bedrooms with the windows closed, “you can still hear it,” he says.

His wife, Sarah, reached out to local officials. Lisa Green, the Albemarle County code compliance officer, took a noise meter out to the Healys’ neighborhood for measurements. At the property line, where she is required to measure noise, the readings were just below the noise ordinance. But because the backyards of the homes on Commonwealth Drive are elevated on a hill, Green noted that the readings went slightly above the ordinance when she stepped farther into a home’s backyard.

“This is something we deal with constantly with new construction,” she says.

According to Brad Sheffield, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors’ representative for the Rio District, there was a similar issue with Gander Mountain on 29 North. The store backed up against backyards and the air conditioning units were level with the homes. Though Sheffield was not a supervisor at this time, he says he’s been told the developer complied and reduced the noise.

Calling the noise bouncing off of Costco “just a hum,” Green says she still sympathizes with the Healys and understands that their backyard was once a very quiet place, so even the slightest noise could be irritating.

Green notified the developers, who she says were “exceptionally responsive,” and within days, they had created a plan to muffle the noise.

“They are committed to being good neighbors,” Green says.

According to Costco’s regional manager Anita Schwartz, the developers planned to conduct their own noise test at press time to determine whether placing baffles around the heating and cooling units or removing some from the roof will be most effective in reducing the noise. She says the results will come back in two weeks.

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All bark and no bite: Controversial girls soccer match resurfaces

In 2012, Kat Ditta was accused of biting an opponent during a highly anticipated soccer match and was, consequently, charged with misdemeanor assault and battery and given a 90-day suspended sentence. Photo by Martyn Kyle

In the summer of 2012, the co-captain of the Fluvanna County High School girls varsity soccer team was charged with misdemeanor assault and battery and given a 90-day suspended sentence for biting an ex-teammate, who was playing for Western Albemarle High School in a heavily anticipated rivalry match.

Three years later, New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Coleman’s 60-page book, Crossing The Line: How One Incident in a Girls’ Soccer Match Rippled Across Small-Town America, recalls this controversial game by placing it in a larger context of what led up to it and what resulted, and asks readers to consider who, in the story, is the victim and whether there is more than one.

Taking the alleged biter’s side, Coleman focuses on the role of Greg Domecq, the now-retired associate principal of Western Albemarle who doubles as the father of the alleged victim. Though he says he had no biases before he began reporting for the book, Coleman says he learned from many sources that Domecq seemed obsessed with his children’s athletic careers and that winning was potentially more important to him than anything.

“My sense was that something terribly wrong had happened here,” says Coleman, who believes Kat Ditta, the alleged biter, “was the victim of something that had nothing to do with her,” and that she was just a competitive player in the way of the Western Albemarle Warriors winning the match, which they did. Coleman suggests that Ditta never actually bit Christine Domecq.

Ditta’s charges were ultimately nolle prossed (dismissed) at the Domecqs’ request, but she looks back on the negative impacts of her conviction and thanks Coleman for helping her realize that she had nothing to do with her own misfortune.

One of Greg Domecq’s former colleagues at Western, Lisa Marshall, who worked with him for many years, says she believes the book was unfair, and that Domecq has shown her documentation that refutes some of the accusations in Crossing the Line.

But Coleman contends his book couldn’t be more deeply reported, and not one person has come forward to dispute anything.

Repeated calls and e-mails to Greg Domecq were not returned. Marshall says he told her in a text message that he is sick of talking about the book.

Ditta, however, finally feels okay with talking about her experiences that stemmed from the controversial soccer match and costly court case, which included financial trouble and severe depression.

“It was mind-boggling,” she says. “You can keep yourself out of trouble through your entire high school career and end up in trouble anyway.”

At the time of her conviction, Ditta says she attempted to cut herself off from society by hiding in her parents’ basement. When she had to leave the house, she’d take her mom’s car instead of her 1995 bright-red Jeep Wrangler that people around town easily recognized.

To pay court fees, Ditta, family and friends hosted a cookout and also raised enough money on a crowdfunding site to go toward one semester at Virginia Wesleyan College.

“It was certainly detrimental,” Ditta says, “and going into college with a criminal record isn’t great.”

At Virginia Wesleyan, she played soccer until sustaining a sport-related injury sophomore year. Lynchburg College, for which Christine Domecq plays, is in the same conference, and the two teams met when Ditta was a sophomore and Domecq was a freshman. Though Domecq didn’t play in that game, she and her family were present, and Ditta says seeing the Domecqs “affected my game a little bit.”

With the publication of Coleman’s book, Ditta says she and her mother feel like her good name has been restored.

“I’m doing great now,” she says. “I’m a lot more confident than I ever was before. Once you’re put in the spotlight, you come out of your little bubble for sure.”

Updated September 2 — Kat Ditta was charged in June 2012 and her trial was in July. The original version said she was charged in July. 

Updated September 4 — Greg Domecq is the now-retired associate principal of Western Albemarle, not the now-retired vice principal.

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UPDATED: Two Virginia journalists slain by former station employee

Alison Parker and Adam Ward, two WDBJ journalists, were killed August 26 during a live broadcast. Photo courtesy of WDBJ7.

On August 26, viewers of Roanoke’s WDBJ morning news show initially didn’t know what had happened when the camera abruptly dropped and multiple pops could be heard. Later, they were shocked to learn they’d witnessed the execution of a reporter and cameraman on live TV during the interview of a third victim about Smith Mountain Lake’s 50th anniversary.

The Franklin County Sheriff’s Department received a phone call at 6:43am, alerting it that shots were fired at Bridgewater Plaza in Moneta, Virginia, according to a press release.

The reporter, Alison Parker, 24, and her cameraman, Adam Ward, 27, were pronounced dead at the scene, the first journalists killed in the U.S. since 2007.

They’d been interviewing Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Vicki Gardner, who was reportedly shot in the back and taken to Carilion Clinic. On the day of the murders, a spokesperson for the clinic, Chris Turnbull, said Gardner was in stable condition. Gardner continues to recover from surgery and non-life-threatening injuries.

“We know this has been a very difficult situation to manage professionally and personally,” Franklin County Sheriff Bill Overton said at a press conference that afternoon. Members of WDBJ continued to provide constant coverage of the slayings of their two former colleagues and the race to track down their suspected killer throughout the day. They also reported that flowers, phone calls and e-mails were pouring in to comfort the grieving news crew.

About five hours after the murders and succeeding a brief police chase, the suspected killer crashed his rental car into the median of I-66 in Fauquier County, nearly 200 miles away from the scene of the crime. When police reached his car, Vester Lee Flanagan II was suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Overton reported that Flanagan died at 1:30pm at the Inova Fairfax Hospital.

The Franklin County Sheriff’s office says Flanagan, through his writings and evidence left behind, identified with others who have committed domestic acts of violence and mass murder, as well as the September 11 terrorists. Flanagan purchased a gun two days after Dylan Root shot nine black worshippers in a Charleston church.

Overton says Flanagan was a former WDBJ employee and the sheriff’s department has a copy of a “lengthy, multi-page fax” of grievances and a suicide note that Flanagan sent to ABC News, which received the 23-page document at 8:26am on the morning of the murders.

According to ABC, Flanagan had called several times over the past few weeks to pitch a news story, and at approximately 10am August 26 he called again, introducing himself as Bryce Williams, which was the name Flanagan used on-air, and stating that his legal name was Vester Lee Flanagan II. He said authorities were chasing him before hanging up the phone.

Ward, who attended Virginia Tech, was preparing to move to Charlotte, North Carolina, where his fiancée, WDBJ morning producer Melissa Ott, was taking a new job. He was leaving the news business, one of his colleagues told ABC News.

Parker grew up in Martinsville and attended James Madison University. “Alison was our bright, shining light and it was cruelly extinguished by yet another crazy person with a gun,” said her father, Andy Parker, in a statement. “She excelled at everything she did and was loved by everyone she touched. She loved us dearly, and we talked to her every single day. Not hearing her voice again crushes my soul. Our family can only take solace in the fact that although her life was brief, she was so happy with it. She lived it to the fullest and her spirit will always be with us.”

Her father has vowed to fight for tougher gun control laws. Governor Terry McAuliffe publicly shared the same sentiment:

“As we reflect with heavy hearts on this tragedy, it is appropriate to begin to ask questions about how we can prevent these senseless events in the future. Keeping guns out of the hands of people who would use them to harm our family, friends and loved ones is not a political issue; it is a matter of ensuring that more people can come home safely at the end of the day,” McAuliffe said in a press release. “We cannot rest until we have done whatever it takes to rid our society of preventable gun violence that results in tragedies like the one we are enduring today.”

At JMU, Parker was a news editor for the student newspaper, The Breeze. The paper’s adviser, Brad Jenkins, describes her as tenacious and someone who wasn’t afraid of asking hard questions.

“She had a real spirit,” Jenkins says. “She wanted to get the news, so she went after it as hard as she could.”

JMU’s school of media arts and design has established a scholarship in her memory.

A scholarship at Salem High School, which Ward attended, has been created in his name.

Original story updated on September 1, 2015.

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Senator Mark Warner discusses on-demand economy

Senator Mark Warner was in town to discuss the significance of the share economy. Photo courtesy of Moonlighting

On August 19, Senator Mark Warner attended a round-table discussion hosted by local hiring platform Moonlighting about employment, the government’s role in a sharing economy and efforts to help people make more money.

More than a dozen local workers from freelance and independent contract companies like Uber, Etsy and Airbnb attended the discussion, in which rising concerns and opinions about how policymakers can make the on-demand economy work best was a main talking point.

“Whether by economic necessity or by choice, as many as one-third of American workers now find themselves piecing together two, three or more on-demand opportunities to make a living,” Warner said, according to a press release. “Yet Washington mostly has remained on the sidelines as the U.S. economy, its workforce and the workplace have undergone perhaps the most dramatic transformation in decades.

Warner says he is committed to finding practical solutions to keeping up with the shift in the economy.