Tag: albemarle county police department

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Domestic murder

On October 25, Shawna Marie Natalie Murphy was arrested for the murder of her boyfriend, Matthew Sean Farrell, a locally-beloved publisher, writer, and connoisseur of the arts. PC: Rich Tarbell

On October 25, the Albemarle County Police Department arrested Shawna Marie Natalie Murphy for the murder of her boyfriend, Matthew Sean Farrell, at his home.

Shortly before 8:30am, the ACPD and Albemarle County Fire Rescue responded to a domestic disturbance report on the 2100 block of Stony Point Road. When officers arrived, they found Farrell dead from a gunshot wound.

Murphy, 38, was charged with second-degree murder and using a firearm in the commission of a felony. She had dated and lived with Farrell, 53, for several years, reports The Daily Progress.

The ACPD did not publicize the victim’s identity until October 27, citing investigative efforts. “A need for additional resources was determined by responding officers due to explosive materials found at the scene. Bomb technicians … cleared and disposed of explosives that were on the property. These materials posed no threat to the public or surrounding properties prior to their disposal,” read a press release.

Farrell, who grew up near Farmville, moved to Charlottesville in 1990 after college and a brief stint in the military. It was here where he became a locally-beloved publisher, writer, and connoisseur of the arts—or, as he told C-VILLE in a 2011 interview, “an arts person, a fop, and a dandy.” 

In 1991, Farrell, who earned a master’s degree in philosophy, founded Hypocrite Press, which published works by “local writers who are writing about Charlottesville,” he told C-VILLE. Published books include street to forest: a scattered guide for the charlottesville unresidenced, which Farrell described as a guidebook containing tips, commentary, and entertainment “for local homeless street persons, slackers, and train-hobo kids.” After publishing street to forest in 2010, Farrell handed out 100 free copies of the book, which involved around 30 local collaborators, to people experiencing homelessness downtown, and did not take profits from it.

In 1992, Farrell also opened a short-lived art gallery called Galerie Oktoberfaust inside the Jefferson Theater, and created a cable television variety show called “Let’s Get Lost,” reports The Daily Progress. 

In a 2002 letter, he requested C-VILLE and The Hook refer to him as “Downtown Charlottesville’s Leading Public Intellectual,” and support him in his effort. 

“I had been casting about for something I could be or do to continue my pattern of selfless and committed service to this town and its people I love more than anyone or anything. It was then this sweet yet low voice last night … made me to know the path,” wrote Farrell. “I realized then at its urging that I must rise to fill an urgent void … I must needs for the good of this community stretch myself as a coat to cover the puddle, that Charlottesville might cross unsoiled.”

“Brevo, I am now ‘Downtown Charlottesville’s Leading Public Intellectual,’” he continued. “I will make occasional vague cultural proclamations, occasionally challenge the proclamations of leading public intellectuals from elsewhere, occasionally meet with other leading public intellectuals from elsewhere, and otherwise uphold the distinction to the best of my abundant or adequate ability, with appropriate pomposity, loftiness of purpose, self-significance, and amorphous/ambiguous opining.”

Murphy is currently being held without bond at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.

Read C-VILLE’s 2011 interview with Farrell here.

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‘He was like a ninja’: Rivanna shooting remains unsolved

On April 7, two young men were shot at by an unknown assailant at the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir near Woodburn Road. PC: SanjaySuchak

On the morning of April 7, a local 20-year-old college student and his 18-year-old cousin woke up early, excited for a day of fishing on the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir. By 9 am, they were on the water in their kayaks, waiting to see who would make the first catch of the day.

Shortly before 10 they heard gunshots. They couldn’t tell which direction they were coming from, but they were shocked when the second shot landed in the water about 30 to 40 yards away from their kayaks.

“We just figured this hunter was not seeing us,” says the college student, who for privacy reasons asked that we not use his or his cousin’s names. But “the next one got even closer. That’s when we realized we needed to start getting to shore.”

As the young men frantically paddled toward the riverbank, the shooter fired about a dozen more times in their direction, one shot landing five or six feet away from the college student’s kayak. He and his cousin reached dry land , and immediately took cover in the woods to the right of the boat ramp and called the police to report an active shooter.

“We figured [the shooting] was coming from somewhere along the loading dock, near our car,” he says. “When we called the cops, we realized that the shooter stopped. We didn’t hear anything, so we figured we had a chance to get the kayaks in the car immediately and just to leave.”

A single Albemarle County police officer arrived around the time they finished packing up their kayaks. After talking with the officer for a few minutes, the young men noticed some movement across the water, near a black fence located on Millers Cottage Road.

“We saw this guy running down a hill in all black. He was like a ninja almost…he started from one end of the black fence to the other side,” the college student says. “He was full-on sprinting, but it looked effortless. Like he was trained.”

“We told the cop, ‘Look, there he is!’ And before we even realized it, [the person] was gone,” he adds. “I think he was trying…to get to an area where he could get a better read on us.”

Gunshots started flying again, forcing all three men to take cover. As soon as the shooting stopped, the young men immediately jumped in their car and booked it home. 

The police officer called the college student later that day, and told him that more shots were fired after he and his cousin left, one of them going right over the officer’s head and striking the tree behind him. The officer said he did not see the shooter, or where he went, the college student says.

Multiple officers immediately conducted a 90-minute search of the area, according to an April 7 press release, but were unable to determine the source of the shooting, or collect any evidence. However, the high schooler and his father performed their own search the following day, and claimed they found four nine millimeter cases “10 steps into a trail,” where they believe the shooter fired toward the young men and the responding officer. The casings have since been turned over to the ACPD. 

Bad weather was forecast for that evening, so the young men and their families urged the police to bring trained dogs immediately to the area, because the rain could wash away gunpowder, as well as any fingerprints left on gun casings. The college student says the police did not bring a dog to the scene until two days after the shooting, when it had already rained twice.

“It was pretty worthless to even have a K-9 come out at that point,” says the college student.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to bash the cops, just because I don’t know all that goes on,” he adds. But “the reason they didn’t clear out the reservoir is beyond me…or even put out an alert [saying there’s] a possible shooting at Rivanna River.”

In response to C-VILLE’s questions, ACPD declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation. But in an April 17 press release, the department stated that “strong evidence was collected to show that the two individuals in kayaks were not being shot at, nor targeted” and that “evidence shows there is no public threat.” The release did not specify what that evidence was.

Police said they are continuing to investigate “the individual that fired the weapon.” Anyone with information related to the incident is encouraged to call CrimeStoppers at 977-4000 or email CrimeStoppers@albemarle.org.

Updated 4/16 and 4/20 with additional information.

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In Brief: IMPACT takes on ICE, infiltrators at SURJ, City Manager fires back

A representative from a local congregation puts up signs at the IMPACT rally. Photo: Zach Wajsgras

Making an IMPACT

“It has been almost four years since the father of my kids was deported to Mexico due to his stay in the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail,” said Fanny Smedlie, reading a statement from her friend Karla Lopez.

Smedlie, a member of the Executive Committee of the Church of the Incarnation, addressed a large gathering of people of faith from all over Charlottesville at a March 5 rally for IMPACT, an interfaith community service coalition. Ending the ACRJ’s practice of voluntarily notifying ICE when undocumented immigrants are detained is one of the causes that IMPACT has adopted this year.

After a year in jail, Lopez’s husband was deported on the day he was supposed to be released. Lopez was waiting outside the jail with her children. “They had prepared balloons and a banner that said welcome home Dad. When we got back home, they destroyed it,” read Smedlie.

As well as lobbying the jail board to end ICE notifications, IMPACT also hopes to continue advocating for greater investment in affordable housing, a cause they worked on last year.

The rally this week was a warm up for the group’s larger annual event, which will be held March 31 at Charlottesville High School. The leaders at the rally revealed IMPACT’s guiding theory of change-making: “We need our people power to make all this happen,” said Greta Dershimer of Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church. IMPACT hopes to turn out 1,300 people for that event.

Reverend Will Peyton of St. Paul’s Memorial Church emphasized that the diverse crowd of people gathered before him on Thursday all represented one community, and that working towards divine justice meant fighting for each other.

“The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you,” Peyton said.

“It is not about individuals. It’s about the whole community.”

Suspicious minds

A Charlottesville Police detective who assembled a dossier on anti-fascist groups in the months before the Unite the Right rally approvingly quoted right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, and described antifascists as “using words to cloak reality,” according to newly surfaced city government documents. Cops also compiled research on Black Lives Matter (in addition to the white nationalist groups that organized the deadly rally), and two detectives even turned up covertly at the downtown library for a June 2017 meeting of Showing Up for Racial Justice, or SURJ.

“The meeting started with the group”—40 to 50 people, mostly women— “chanting the names of individuals who had suffered ‘police’ brutality,” one of them wrote. “A female spoke for approximately 30 minutes on the history of the Monacan nation.”

The detectives witnessed the handover of a racial justice yard sign and T-shirt before being forced to abort their mission. “I left early,” one wrote, “as I was concerned that I would be made during a group activity where all were forced to participate.”

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Quote of the Week

“I know they are here, my ancestors. The people that found the town called Winneba are here with me and I think they are so proud.”

­—Nana Akyeampong-Ghartey, president of the Charlottesville-Winneba Foundation, on the honorary designation of 6 1/2 Street SW as Winneba Way

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In Brief

Hot under the collar

City Manager Tarron Richardson and local firefighter’s union leader Greg Wright exchanged fiery emails last week, after Richardson declined to grant the fire department’s request for 12 new staff. Wright said Richardson was “willfully ignorant” about the department; Richardson shot back that “Your educational achievements…will never be a match to any of my qualifications or credentials,” in emails procured by The Daily Progress.

Be ready

Like everyone else, city and county school systems are preparing for the possibility of a local outbreak of coronavirus. ACPS released a detailed plan that includes implementing social distancing in schools, advising parents to secure long-term childcare, and the potential cancellation of  assemblies, athletic events, and field trips if a case of COVID-19 is identified in the region.

Crime ring?

Albemarle County Police Department has announced that it’s joining more than 400 police departments nationwide in partnering with Ring, Amazon’s video doorbell home security system. That means county cops will be able to access video footage from outside (and sometimes inside) people’s homes, which is also stored on Amazon’s servers. New York Mag calls the system “dystopian;” The Intercept notes its “dismal privacy practices;” and Vice says Ring is essentially “de facto beta testing” for facial recognition software. What could go wrong?

 

 

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Race-based bias: Consultants demonstrate racist policing, council says study didn’t go far enough

Local justice systems disproportionately contact black people, a new report finds.

A report from a private consulting firm has concluded that Charlottesville and Albemarle disproportionately arrest black people, and that race-based disparities exist in the treatment of individuals in otherwise similar situations.

The report analyzes adult arrest data from the beginning of 2014 through the end of 2016. During that period, more than half (51.5 percent) of those arrested in Charlottesville were black men, despite black men making up only 8.5 percent of the city’s total population. In Albemarle County, where black men made up only 4.4 percent of the population, 37.6 percent of arrests were of black men. (The full report can be viewed here.)

That disproportionality is accompanied by racial disparity at multiple levels of the area’s criminal justice systems. African American defendants received harsher charges than white defendants for similar crimes. African American defendants were held without bond more often. African American men were held in jail prior to trial twice as long, on average, as white men.

The majority of people booked in Charlottesville are black, even though black people make up a small minority of the city’s population.

The city commissioned MGT Consulting Group, a national firm that often works with municipal governments, to put together the report in 2018. The city paid for $65,000 of the $155,000 project, with the remaining funding coming from the state. Charlottesville ran a similar study on the juvenile criminal justice system in 2011, which also found racial disproportionality.

In addition to the raw data, the report incorporates interviews with law enforcement officers, lawyers, and people who have been arrested, and consultants held a series of community meetings over the last nine months.

At the February 3 City Council meeting, the consultants made an official presentation of their findings.

The report provides statistical support for a state of affairs that was already well known to those affected.

“If you’re a member of the black community, as I am, this is something that I’ve been seeing for years,” said Mayor Nikuyah Walker at the meeting. “You didn’t need this study in the first place. You have the lived experience of it.”

“What this study does is it documents the problem, it validates the problem,” said Reggie Smith, the director of the project for MGT. “Perceptions and opinions are one thing. But we have done the work and the statistical analysis to say this is not happening by chance.”

Kaki Dimock, the city’s director of human services, said at the council meeting that the report was a “marathon data problem,” the beginning of a “seven- to 10-year process,” and a jumping-off point that “begs a series of additional sets of whys.”

“We do know the why,” Walker responded. “And the why has been apparent since enslavement ended.”

Walker and others were critical of the report’s recommendations for addressing the disparities. The document suggests supporting re-entry programs, increasing transparency in city and county police departments, increasing diversity in law enforcement, conducting additional research, and more. 

“These are things that we have been doing,” Walker said. “The city has been investing millions of dollars into some of these programs.”

A strong Police Civilian Review Board, to provide transparency and  community oversight of the police, is among the report’s recommendations. Charlottesville created an initial CRB  in 2018, and councilors are currently interviewing candidates for a permanent board. Albemarle County does not have a Police Civilian Review Board, and according to the consultants, the county Board of Supervisors has not scheduled a time to formally hear the report.

Charlottesville criminal justice lawyer Jeff Fogel says he feels the report provides valuable data, but he wants more specificity in the plan moving forward.

“I would take a look at all the police officers and what their rates of arrest are in terms of blacks and whites,” Fogel says. Taking a more individualized approach could help determine if the cause of the disparity can be ascribed to specific officers or larger systems.

Councilor Lloyd Snook, a defense attorney, called for similar specificity. “Which judges are doing what? Which judges are worse than others?” Snook asked. 

The study did not identify specific persons at any point in the justice continuum, even though that data could have been made available to the researchers, says Fogel.

“I don’t think we can move forward if we don’t look at the who,” Walker said. “We have to be bold enough to take a look at that.”

The report also doesn’t address the longer-term effects of discriminatory policing, which Fogel would like to see studied. “How many people can’t get jobs because they have a prior record?” the attorney asks. “How many people are not living with their partners because they have a drug offense and they cannot live in public housing? We know if a child’s parent goes to prison, the likelihood of that child going to prison has been multiplied.”

Council will have to decide how much more city money to spend on additional research. 

“One of the big questions I have,” said councilor Michael Payne, “is what does this change? What, if anything, changes in the behavior and policies of the city as a result of this? That’s a question in part for us as a council to resolve.”

 

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Tragedy on 29: Pedestrian death highlights need for safer crossings

The intersection at Gander Drive and U.S. 29 where Dorman was hit and killed. The closest crosswalk is approximately a half mile away. PC: Skyclad Aerial

Before Bradley Shaun Dorman left his Charlottesville home the morning of October 25, he told his mother he was going to look for a job. He would be back in a few hours, in time to bathe their dog Gater.

Several hours later, his mother, Annette Simmons, heard a knock at her door. She opened it to discover a police officer on her doorstep. It was every mother’s worst nightmare: her son was in the hospital. He’d been hit by a car while trying to cross U.S. 29 North.

The officer drove Simmons to UVA hospital, where Dorman was on life support. He had sustained internal and external injuries from head to toe along his left side. 

“His brain stem was so damaged that he technically couldn’t survive,” says Simmons. “He would’ve had to live on life support forever.”

At the hospital, Simmons says Albemarle County police officers told her that the driver was speeding in the far-left-turn lane near Gander Drive when she hit Dorman, and that an investigation was ongoing. 

Police later said the driver of the vehicle was not found to be at fault in the crash and would not face any charges. But when C-VILLE requested a copy of the police report under the Freedom of Investigation Act, the department denied the request, stating in an email that it was withholding all police reports, “as they are part of criminal investigative files.” The department did not specify who or what was under investigation.

Simmons allowed family and friends to visit Dorman at the hospital before taking him off of life support. He passed away on October 27 at age 41.

Bradley Shaun Dorman, 41, died on October 27 at University of Virginia Hospital. Photo courtesy of the family.

Dorman’s death sheds light on the need for more safe pedestrian crossings on U.S. 29. According to Albemarle County Principal Transportation Planner Kevin McDermott, the crosswalk closest to where Dorman was hit is on the Rio Road overpass —approximately a half mile away. 

Since January 1, 2013, there have been eight pedestrians struck by a vehicle on Route 29 in Albemarle County. An additional five pedestrians have been struck in the City of Charlottesville between the 250 bypass and Hydraulic Road. Dorman’s death is “is the first pedestrian fatality on Route 29 since the beginning of those records,” says McDermott.

“We are trying to do what we can to make 29 a safer place for pedestrians,” says McDermott. “Five years ago, there were no crosswalks on 29 north of the city. Since then…we’ve gotten three new crosswalks on 29:” at Angus Road, on the Rio Road overpass, and at Hollymead Drive. 

Albemarle County has looked at additional crosswalk locations on 29, specifically at Hilton Heights Road and Woodbrook Drive, which are both near Gander Drive (where Dorman was hit). However, it currently does not have any new crosswalks funded or planned.

Due to the way funding cycles work, “we’re probably not going to see another new crossing out there for at least two years,” says McDermott. “But the county [does] monitor accidents, including pedestrian accidents… so when something like this happens, we take another look at the area and see what potential things we might be able to do to make the situation better for pedestrians.” 

Further south, city and county officials have been in discussions for years about improving the intersection at 29 and Hydraulic Road, but a plan submitted last year for funding through the Virginia Department of Transportation’s SmartScale program was denied. Earlier this year, members of the Hydraulic Planning Advisory Panel voiced support for the idea of building a bridge across 29 at Zan Road, connecting the Seminole Square Shopping Center with The Shops at Stonefield, and including a bike lane and sidewalks as well as vehicle access. 

Simmons hopes the county follows up on its plans to create more safe crossings, and wishes it would put crosswalks at every traffic light. 

“I don’t want nobody else to go through what I have to face,” she says.

Dorman did not have a car, and he often got rides from friends in order to run errands for his mother. He had moved in with her about two months ago, after breaking up with his girlfriend and losing his job due to health issues. Because of her severe back problems and inability to walk and stand for long periods of time, among other disabilities, Simmons relied on him to help her out around the house. 

“He was my first-born, my anchor,” says Simmons. “When I needed him, he was always there when he could. He would do anything for anybody…and would go to the extreme limits for his friends and family.”

Since Dorman’s death, Simmons has been struggling with raising the money for his funeral costs.

“I was told that the driver was responsible for the funeral,” says Simmons. “Now [the driver’s] insurance is saying they’re not responsible.”

Simmons, 58, lives on disability benefits, and says she is currently selling four burial plots at Monticello Memory Gardens and hosting a fundraiser on everloved.com in order to raise money for the funeral service and other expenses. She is also seeking the return of her son’s cell phone, which she believes may have been taken from the scene by a bystander.

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Pump the brakes: New cameras target motorists illegally passing stopped buses

Due to new legislation and cameras, you could be sent a $250 ticket if you illegally pass a stopped school bus. Photo by Martyn Kyle

Approximately 6,000 drivers whiz past stopped school buses in Albemarle County each year, putting students getting on and off the bus in jeopardy. New legislation that allows the installation of stop-arm cameras aims to put an end to this dangerous trend.

County school officials say they’ve been advocating for the technology for at least six years, and dozens of aggravated bus drivers signed a petition calling for cameras in March 2018. In the most recent General Assembly session, Delegate Rob Bell, an Albemarle resident, carried and helped pass a bill to allow the cameras.

The politician says putting kids on the bus under current conditions can be scary.

“It’s a leap of faith,” he says. “You put your little one on the bus and hope that it works.”

Bell’s daughter usually catches a ride to Baker-Butler Elementary with bus driver Chris Conti, whose route goes up U.S. 29 North and through the Briarwood neighborhood.

“On a regular, weekly basis, I have cars that run my lights,” says Conti.

From the time Conti turns on his amber lights—the ones that signal drivers to slow down before he applies the red lights, which mean stop—he adds, “You can almost see people hit the accelerator instead of the brake. They go shooting by me on the left, and the students are getting off on the right. It’s a scary situation.”

Recently, in Earlysville, a motorist plowed right through a bus’ stop arm, which Albemarle County Supervisor Diantha McKeel calls “shocking.”

“We’ve been lucky in this community that we haven’t had a tragedy,” she says.

The Board of Supervisors will need to pass an ordinance that matches the new state code to allow the cameras to be installed, and McKeel says it intends to do it before the next school year begins.

Though Albemarle County Public Schools have about 160 buses, somewhere between 20 and 40 vehicles in the most problematic and high-volume traffic areas will be the first to see the new technology, according to Jim Foley, the division’s director of transportation.

He suspects folks often speed past the buses “out of ignorance of knowing the law,” but a $250 fine will likely help educate them. The motion-sensing cameras will photograph the license plate of the offending driver, and then county police will mail a ticket to the car’s owner.

The cameras are proven to be an effective deterrent: Foley says only about 1 percent of offenders get caught more than once.

Says bus driver Conti, “Word will get out and hopefully behaviors will change.”

The news of stop-arm camera installations also pleases Forest Lakes parent Josh Cason, who has been drawing attention on social media to cars passing stopped buses at a bus stop in the southern part of his neighborhood since last school year.

After calling, emailing, and sending videos to the Albemarle County Police Department for months, he was disappointed when he only noticed cops stationed at the stop a handful of times, though the department assured him on Twitter that officers focus on school zones and bus routes.

Says Cason, “I think it’s about time it’s being taken seriously.”

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Airport escape: Teen on the lam raises questions about alerts

The 17-year-old boy who escaped his private security guards at the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport on November 30 was “scared,” “cold,” and “hungry” by the time he reached several homes six miles from CHO, according to one of those residents.

An Earlysville woman who spoke with him in Spanish, and who talked to C-VILLE on the condition her name not be used, said he told her he’d been in a group home that he didn’t like and where he’d gotten in trouble, and he wanted to go to his cousin, who lived in the Midwest.

The teen was being transported from Texas to a detention center in Shenandoah, and knocked on at least three residents’ doors asking for help in broken English, says Earlysville resident Gary Grant. Grant appeared before the Albemarle Board of Supervisors December 5 and 12 to ask officials “why we weren’t notified about it in real time as this emergency was occurring.”

Among the details Grant is trying to confirm are allegations that local law enforcement was asked not to alert the community, that CHO didn’t know the juvenile was coming through, that the teen did not have any handcuffs or tracking devices, that he was spotted from the CHO tower fleeing around airport security fencing, and that the guards with him “were not in good enough physical shape to pursue him and recapture him,” Grant told the board.

According to Albemarle spokesperson Madeline Curott, Albemarle police were helping the Texas Department of Corrections and the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport Police. “There was a limited area alert sent to citizens to help the ACPD locate the juvenile,” she said in an email.

As for Grant’s other allegations, she cites Virginia Code and says Albemarle police “will not be able to provide confirmation or denial.”

Earlysville resident Gary Grant wants to know why people weren’t told that a juvenile en route to a detention center escaped from the airport. Courtesy Gary Grant

On December 13, Grant spoke with Captain Darrell Byers, who told him that a reverse 911 alert was sent to residents on Bleak House Road and Montei Drive. Grant, who lives on Bleak House, said he didn’t get an alert, nor did several of his neighbors.

And in a December 17 email to Grant, Amanda Farley in the county attorney’s office writes that the limited area alert was prepared, but never sent.

Byers says a community-wide alert was not issued because police checked with the county attorney and determined there was no danger to the community—and to protect the identity of the boy.

As for whether the teen was even under arrest or what his immigration status was, Byers says, “I can’t get into those details.”

Grad student Maggie Thornton arrived at the airport that day around 3pm, and says she saw on Twitter that a person was spotted dashing across the runway. Someone who works at the airport restaurant told her that when a juvenile got off the plane, “he took off.”

Passengers in the airport were told there was a “federal ground stop,” but were given no details. “I thought it was a problem they didn’t tell us what was happening,” she says. And she worried about what happened to the child.

The Earlysville resident echoed that concern, saying the teen, who was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, offered to work in exchange for food and shelter. “He was not dangerous,” she says. “I think the police were right in not alerting people.”

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In brief: Crime report, coach gets caught, dead body bamboozle and more

It’s about crime

The Albemarle County Police Department released its annual crime report for 2017 in June, and while we already published some of the most striking statistics, here’s what else caught our eye.

Between the years of 2016 and 2017, crimes rates increased in all but one category. The largest increases were in homicide and forcible rape, whose rates increased by a whopping 500 percent and 93 percent, respectively. The exception was robbery, which decreased by more than 50 percent.

  • 1,805 larcenies, 1.4 percent increase
  • 1,305 property crimes, 2.3 percent increase
  • 146 breaking and enterings, 0.7 percent increase
  • 74 stolen motor vehicles, 21.3 percent increase
  • 37 aggravated assaults, 9 percent increase
  • 27 forcible rapes, 93 percent increase
  • 10 robberies, 52 percent decrease
  • 6 homicides, 500 percent increase

Disorderly conduct was the most common call for service.

  • Disorderly Conduct: 1,223 calls
  • Mental Health: 575 calls
  • Noise Complaint: 560 calls
  • Drug Offenses: 529 calls
  • Trespassing: 427 calls
  • Vandalism: 403 calls
  • Domestic Assault: 321 calls
  • Shots Fired: 273 calls
  • DUI: 174 calls
  • DIP: 163 calls
  • Littering: 12 calls

The report’s demographic breakdown found that whites make up two-thirds of the arrests in the county.

  • White: 66.2 percent
  • Black: 32.3 percent
  • Asian or Pacific Islander: 0.8 percent
  • Unknown: 0.7 percent
  • American Indian or Alaskan Native: 0.1 percent

Suicide stats

The county crime report included a new section for mental health. In 2017, Albemarle County Police received 575 mental-health-related calls, a 7 percent increase from the previous year. In 2015, there was a record 24 percent increase from the previous year. Deaths by suicide have decreased slightly over the past half-decade.

2013

  • Attempted: 18
  • Completed: 12

2014

  • Attempted: 17
  • Completed: 13

2015

  • Attempted: 10
  • Completed: 15

2016

  • Attempted: 18
  • Completed: 6

2017

  • Attempted: 11
  • Completed: 11

We’ve been duped

A human figure wrapped in cloth, tightly bound at the neck and feet and dumped at the McIntire Recycling Center over the weekend gave recyclers a scare—until police responded to the scene and cut the cloth to reveal a mannequin. Police are still investigating the body bamboozle.

WillowTree makes moves

Governor Ralph Northam dropped by August 27 to announce that WillowTree will invest approximately $20 million in an expansion and relocation to the old Woolen Mills factory, which will create more than 200 jobs. The new location will allow the 276-employee company to grow to 500, and the move is expected to be completed by the end of next year.

Coach gets caught

A Monticello High School assistant football and girls’ basketball coach has been placed on administrative leave following his August 24 arrest for allegedly sending “inappropriate electronic communications” to a juvenile. George “Trae” Payne III is also a teacher’s aide at the school.

 

Change of venue

Attorneys for James Fields say he won’t be able to get a fair trial this November in the same town where he allegedly rammed his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of anti-racist activists, killing one of them and injuring many. They’ve asked to move his three-week, first-degree murder trial elsewhere, or bring in out-of-town jurors. A judge is expected to rule on the motion August 30.

Like a high school paper

Liberty University now requires its student newspaper, the Liberty Champion, to get approval from two to three administrators before publishing a story. Bruce Kirk, the school’s communications dean, told student reporters their job was to protect Liberty’s reputation and image, according to a story in the World magazine.

Heaphy’s new job

Tim Heaphy. Photo by Eze Amos

Former U.S. Attorney Tim Heaphy, a current Hunton & Williams partner who was hired to conduct the controversial independent review of how the city managed last year’s white supremacist events, will now have another notch on his resume. When UVA Counsel Roscoe Roberts retires at the end of the month, Heaphy, a UVA School of Law alumni, will take his place.

Quote of the week:

“We ain’t mad at you Spike Lee. We just want you to do the right thing.” —Unnamed young people in an open letter to Spike Lee, saying he used their images from the August 12 attack in his movie, BlacKkKlansman, without permission. They want him to donate $219,000 to fight white supremacy.

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Double negative: Judge dismisses racial profiling suit against Albemarle cop

Detective Andrew Holmes leaves federal court after the first of five lawsuits against him for racial profiling was dismissed. Staff photo

On the second day of a jury trial against Detective Andrew Holmes for racial profiling in his stops of black motorists—the first of five such suits—plaintiffs’ attorney Jeff Fogel rested his case around noon March 22, and Judge Norman Moon ordered it tossed because Fogel did not prove Holmes treated white people differently.

“There is no evidence he did not subject other races to the same treatment,” said Moon in U.S. District Court.

“You have to prove a negative,” said Fogel after the hearing—that Holmes did not stop and search white people in the same situations as he did Fogel’s clients to prove their complaints that Holmes violated their 14th Amendment rights to equal protection.

Bianca Johnson and Delmar Canada brought the suit after Holmes stopped Canada for driving with a suspended license April 26, 2014, and then turned up at their apartment five days later after 11pm on a Friday night with a search warrant for the Department of Motor Vehicles license suspension notice that Canada said he never received.

Holmes, said Fogel, “believes black people driving fancy cars are likely to be drug dealers.”

Holmes’ attorney, Jim Guynn, said his client is “very interested in investigating drug crimes because so many other crimes are related to the drug trade.” And Holmes, who has been promoted since he searched the couple’s Turtle Creek apartment, had recently learned that using search warrants to look for a piece of paper as a pretext is a “beneficial tool” in finding drugs and is perfectly legal.

The day the officer stopped Canada, he was staking out the Super 8 parking lot on Greenbrier Drive because it’s “one area with higher than average calls for service,” Holmes testified. He turned his license plate scanner to the nearby 7-Eleven and ran the tags on Johnson’s BMW 7 Series parked in the lot.

Albemarle police use a database called PISTOL, which besides providing personal information, also reveals whether one has been a victim, an offender or has visited the jail. Holmes said he recognized Johnson’s name because officers had gone to her apartment on a domestic call, and the system offered up Canada’s name as well. He checked Canada’s driving record and saw that his license had been suspended—all before he knew who was driving the car.

When Canada came out of the convenience store, Holmes pulled him.

Canada testified that he never received the license suspension notice because of child support nonpayment, and said that he’d paid the support more than a year earlier.

For Holmes, Canada’s 2009 arrest for crack cocaine was another factor in his hunch that there could be drugs in the apartment, even though the drug charge was dropped. Canada testified he was a passenger just off work when the arrest happened.

Holmes, who had applied to join the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement Task Force a couple of times, asked a JADE investigator about Canada, who told him “there was no active investigation, but they knew the name,” said Holmes.

Canada and Johnson were asleep when three officers knocked at their door. “It made me nervous because it was so late,” said Johnson. The couple had to sit on the sofa while the officers rummaged through papers for about an hour, and then left without the DMV notice—or drugs.

“I felt violated,” said Canada. “I still think about it.”

Fogel entered into evidence statistics from Albemarle police that show in the sectors Holmes mostly worked, although the population was 68 percent white and 18 percent black, in 2015, 51 percent of the summons he issued were to African-Americans. That same year, 22 percent of county cops tickets were to blacks and 74 percent to whites.

When asked why he cited blacks with greater frequency than other races, Holmes took a long pause and said he couldn’t answer without knowing more about the context and breakdown of the summonses.

“The color of one’s skin alone is not a determining factor” in traffic violations or in drug use,  testified Holmes.

Fogel called as witnesses three black men who had been stopped by Holmes. Sergio Harris, who has filed a lawsuit, said Holmes stopped him three times in one day and searched his 2001 Monte Carlo.

UVA library facilities manager Robert Douglas said Holmes stopped him several times with “bogus” excuses to search his Lincoln Town Car, including a claim he smelled marijuana. “I don’t even smoke weed,” said Douglas, who filed a complaint with the county.

And Rodney Hubbard said Holmes stopped him as he was driving his mother to Maryland on U.S. 29, said he smelled pot, handcuffed him and held them both for two hours during a search of his 2007 Yukon Denali, which yielded no drugs. The Hubbards are plaintiffs in another suit against Holmes.

The witnesses and statistics were not enough for Moon, who said a Fourth Circuit Court ruling required proof “similarly situated individuals in different races were not prosecuted.”

Acknowledged Moon, “They’ve created an impossible burden.”

Fogel said he will appeal the decision. “If you have to prove something that can’t be proven, you have no remedy.”

And Johnson said that while she was disappointed with the decision, “It’s not over. We’re going to keep pressing forward.”

Holmes declined to comment.

 

Correction 11:30am March 23: Sergio Harris was misidentified in the original story.

 

 

 

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Dirty diapers: Daycare provider will go to grand jury

Kathy Yowell Rohm. Courtesy Albemarle County Police

A local daycare operator who was arrested last month on a felony charge of cruelty and injuries to children after 16 youngsters were found in her Forest Lakes home will go before the grand jury in February. A Juvenile and Domestic Relations court judge ruled January 8 that there was enough probable cause to certify the charge.

Kathy Yowell-Rohm smiled and waved to the crowded courtroom as she entered in a red jumpsuit and handcuffs that attached to a chain around her stomach.

The 53-year-old woman was operating a home daycare out of her Forest Lakes residence. A Child Protective Services investigator testified that she received a report that children were being left in car seats all day with no food and without having their diapers changed.

When CPS investigator Alyssa Westenberger arrived at the home on Turnberry Circle on December 6, she said she could hear multiple babies crying from outside.

Initially denied access to the children, Westenberger was accompanied by Albemarle County police officers when she found 16 kids—ages 3 months to one 4-year-old—in different rooms in the home. Some children were in the dark, and all but the oldest child had extremely wet, bulging diapers, said several witnesses. Some of the diapers had soaked through, onto the infants’ clothing and the padding of the seats and swings they were confined to.

At least one diaper was filled with feces, and some of the substance had dried on the leg of the baby wearing it.

“The smell was quite awful, of urine and feces,” said Westenberger.

The CPS investigator testified that Yowell-Rohm isn’t a licensed daycare operator.

In Albemarle County, daycare centers operating out of private homes are known as family day homes, and those serving four or fewer children do not require licenses. However, if a family day home provider cares for more than four kids under the age of 2, with a limit of 12 children, she must possess a state-issued license from the Virginia Department of Social Services, according to spokesperson Cletisha Lovelace.

Defense attorney Scott Goodman said his client’s behavior wasn’t felonious, and that he wasn’t sure prosecutor Darby Lowe proved Yowell-Rohm had committed more than a lack of ordinary care.

“There’s nothing unusual about a 6-month-old being in a car seat or a rocker,” he said, noting that the home was clean and investigators had access to additional clothing and diapers in a variety of sizes. “I’m sure that all over this city at this minute, children are sitting in a dark room, taking a nap, with a dirty diaper.”

Judge Claude Worrell didn’t seem to agree, and he scheduled Yowell-Rohm’s case to be heard before the next sitting grand jury at 9:30am on February 5.

Yowell-Rohm will also be in court January 18 to face charges of drunk in public and allegedly biting an EMT at the UVA/Virginia Tech football game November 24 at Scott Stadium.

The third degree

The Virginia Department of Social Services offers a number of questions parents should ask before deciding on a daycare service for their children.

  • Is there adequate supervision at all times?
  • Is there a routine but flexible schedule?
  • Is there dedicated outside time and indoor time?
  • Do the children have pretend play, music and art time?
  • Are the meals and snacks nutritious?

Corrected January 10 at 3:45pm to reflect that family day home providers who care for more than four children under the age of 2 must be licensed.