Residents raise concern over police response to graduation party shooting

CHESTERFIELD, Va. (WWBT) - The shooting at a graduation party Friday night that left one dead and seven others injured in the neighborhood off Stepney and Weybridge roads left neighbors with questions about how quickly police responded to the situation before shots first rang out.

Neighbors told NBC12 off-camera that they called police numerous times before the shooting started about loud music and a large, unruly crowd.

At one point, some said that people were dancing on top of cars while others sped down the street to the end of the cul-de-sac on Weybridge Road before a fight eventually broke out in the middle of the road on the corner of Stepney Road.

Neighbors say shortly after the fighting began, they heard a barrage of gunfire so intense that some said it sounded like a machine gun was going off.

Another woman says the 20-year-old victim died in the middle of the road in front of her home.

Some neighbors said if police had responded to their complaints, the shooting would never have happened.

“That was a letdown,” one neighbor said about the police response. “That wasn’t a graduation party; it was a riot.”

But Chesterfield police confirmed with NBC12 that they only received five time-stamped calls related to the disturbance from the graduation party between 9:38 p.m. and 10:19 p.m. before they received their first call in response to the shooting at approximately 10:21 p.m.

• 9:38 p.m. – A large number of vehicles swerving in the neighborhood and people being loud at a party
• 9:44 p.m. – Someone is on top of a vehicle, more vehicles are arriving
• 10:04 p.m. – This caller shared the same information as the previous caller
• 10:06 p.m. – A large number of juveniles - about 50-100 - in the street
• 10:19 p.m. – About 30 kids outside partying, being loud/yelling, and physically fighting

“For additional context, we had a total of 62 calls for service, including the shooting, countywide between 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. on Friday night,” a spoke person with Chesterfield Police said.

“Other calls involved a 14-year-old suicidal suspect who was threatening to burn his house down, a motor vehicle accident with a DUI, a disturbance at a group home, and an abduction that was a priority response, so we had a number of officers responded there,” Chesterfield Police Major Brad Badgerow said during a press conference Saturday.

Chesterfield police add that many of the situations the department responded to in lieu of the graduation party did not clear until early Saturday morning.

In response to concerns that police could have prevented the shooting, Badgerow said that it is possible a police presence there sooner could have prevented the party from getting out of control. Still, he says there were too many priorities calls their department responded to before the party escalated into a shooting situation.

“Obviously, we would have hoped for a different circumstance, but we are working to make arrests for the people involved,” he said.

NBC12 also reached out to the Chesterfield Emergency Communication Center for recordings of the five phone calls Chesterfield police said they received before the shooting started, but the ECC said they could not provide them because of the ongoing investigation.

Officers ask anyone in attendance at the party for photos, video, or information on any attendees and any security camera footage on Stepney Road and Weybridge Road.

Anyone with information can call the Chesterfield County Police Department at 804-748-1251 or Crime Solvers at 804-748-0660 or through the P3 app.

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