After a shooting occurred within a thousand feet of several residence halls at the College of William & Mary – leaving a security guard with a bullet permanently lodged in his back – the campus police chief said it was “an isolated incident involving individuals in a dispute” and there was no imminent threat to campus.
The campus newspaper, The Flat Hat, says that’s not quite true: It was gang violence that several police departments have been tracking for years.
The newspaper conducted an extensive investigation that included review of “dozens of public records” and gang members’ social media posts, interviews with “sources tied to local gangs” and those present at The Crust pizzeria the night of the shooting, and outreach to six police departments in nearby jurisdictions:
The shooting at The Crust fits into a pattern of escalating violence between two gangs, both with roots in Williamsburg, which are known to commit crimes such as shootings, witness intimidation, drug trafficking and homicide.
The gangs, which refer to themselves as 143 and Centerville after the neighborhoods they are based in, have been feuding for years.
Williamsburg police named a suspect, John Johnson, two days after the Aug. 27 shooting, and said two weeks later he had turned himself in, without noting they believed the shooting was gang-related.
Johnson was already on their radar, having admitted two years earlier to shooting another person, but that prosecution failed because a witness backed out. The Flat Hat cited a source who said that witness “was threatened with violence” and fled.
Williamsburg police told the paper it didn’t know about Johnson’s gang ties when it first started investigating, but court documents suggest it had “extensive knowledge of Johnson’s gang ties,” the report said.
The Flat Hat said it’s still negotiating with another police department, in James City County, for its records on Johnson, though the department has thus far said it will not waive an expected $5,000 in fees:
Open records laws do not require police departments in Virginia to provide documents containing criminal intelligence, though those departments may do so voluntarily. Both of the gangs whose members were at The Crust the night of the shooting are identified as gangs in multiple court documents available at the Williamsburg James City Courthouse.
Read the report and the police chief’s original letter to the community.
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