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State Trooper shot in Mosby Court has died, suspect in custody
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UPDATE May 27, 2017 8:56 am
Update: The state trooper shot last night in Mosby Court has died, per state police. Alleged shooter caught in Northern Neck pic.twitter.com/qjH9wYorY3
— Graham Moomaw (@gmoomaw) May 27, 2017
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POSTED May 26, 2017 8:18 pm
Multiple sources are reporting that a State Trooper has been shot on Redd Street in Mosby Court.
There is an airplane circling. Word on the street is that there are two suspects.
I have never seen so many police cars in one place, at one time.
Coalter Street from behind MLK to up past Redd Street is taped off. The officers who are manning the tape will not comment, and seem more serious even then usual at times like this.
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Officers directing traffic at Spotsylvania Street and Littlepage Street
Confirmation from the community. Just sad. They should have never cut funding for the RRHA PD.
Oh crap.
State trooper got injured
http://wtvr.com/2017/05/26/mosby-court-crime-scene/
From the WTVR link above:
“A Virginia State Trooper has been rushed to VCU Medical Center after being shot during a operation in the city’s Mosby Court neighborhood, sources tell CBS 6.”
Just terrible.
Oh F*ck. Wow
This is just sickening! When is Mosby going to be demolished…the city needs to get moving on this- DEMOLISH MOSBY!!!!!
Why was he in mosby. Was he alone?
Damn! I was wondering. I definitely saw more cop cars reaching through the streets than ever before.
It’s Mosby courts are you guys surprised? Homegrown gangs vs national gangs bang bang!! Someone sad tear it down . What difference will that make? The problem will just spread to a different side of the city. You have to change the people not the buildings.
Probably should have been in that hood dolo solo. I grew up in Richmond I know how it is
I agree Mosby needs to be torn down
Officer has been identified as state trooper Mike Walter. MCV is on lockdown and looks like a cop convention. Pray for his family and those who committed this violence- and all the violence that has plagued Mosby this Spring.
http://www.richmond.com/local/city-of-richmond/update-shot-trooper-identified-virginia-state-police-trooper-shot-seriously/article_ae20e9c3-d93a-577b-85a3-0fe30317c7d3.html
What’s your excuse this time Mayor?
Virginia’s governor tweeted/released the name of the trooper and asked for prayers for the man “fighting for his life”…., before the State Police had notified all of the family of the wounded man. This from RTD. How stupid and insensitive.
#11 The answer is both… tear it down and replace the people. Let the counties deal with poverty for once. They are rich and efficient enough to do it. They’ve thumbed their noses at Richmond enough now with our concentrated poverty and their booming rich suburbs. Let them take on the burden while Richmond betters itself. We can’t allow thugs to drag us back to being a crime capital. People’s culture and values need to change.
@ 15. Chris
At least the violence slowed down a little bit. Earlier this year we were estimating 20 homicides by years end and 80-100 people shot. I guess you can say with all the police presence they made a decent drop in crime. Might end the year with 10-12 homicides though…
Facebook chatter is saying the trooper did not make it. 7th homicide
Thanks Emily. They need to close down th Mosby projects. Drug and crime haven!!!
When will Mosby be demolished? It’s past time.
Passed
http://www.richmond.com/local/city-of-richmond/update-police-searching-for-man-who-shot-critically-injured-state/article_ae20e9c3-d93a-577b-85a3-0fe30317c7d3.html
There’s no way the Mayor is going to tolerate this with all of the successes Richmond has had in the past several years. I will do everything I can to not let my neighborhood slide back to a slum. If the city can’t afford to tear Mosby down, let’s offer our help.
Amen @John M!!
The response from community activist Art Burton is worth reading in its entirety
https://www.facebook.com/burtonal/posts/1361383027250765?pnref=story
Two things from that, though:
“The politicians have turned pray vigils into a political response.”
“Pray fully; tonight you are somewhere where you are not worried about your children being shot in the head and the police that keep you safe are not being gunned down.”
Oh come on! Politicians follow the lead on the praying. It’s gotten to the point that the bet’s on how the community will respond: prayer with balloons or prayer with candles. And Durham’s been asking for help at every meeting he’s attended for a couple of years now for all the good it’s done the city.
Time for the good people in community to step up and get the plague out of mosby.
“Pray fully; tonight you are somewhere where you are not worried about your children being shot in the head and the police that keep you safe are not being gunned down.”
This is ignorant nonsense. I know many parents in the area who are being forced to move out of the fear and violence that has plagued the area near Mosby.
What is needed is action, not platitudes that have lead to nothing of substance in the over half-century of failure in the Mosby housing projects.
Vigils are appropriate but do not replace results. This act is an outrage and only the latest in a series of similar acts. A thoughtful,level headed approach to eliminating such atrocities and terrorism of the citizens should be demanded and meaningful results expected.
It is the job of government to protect the citizenry and manage the citizen’s resources and we should expect no less. Who is the council member that represents this area? What have has that person done to to protect the citizens that belong to that council district/neighborhood? What is that council person’s plan to address and eliminate this toxic environment?
Mosby Court is in Richmond’s 6th District, represented by Ellen F. Robertson
Map of districts (PDF) http://chpn.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2012-2022RichmondVoterDistrictMaps.7.14.2015.pdf
“It is the job of government to protect the citizenry and manage the citizen’s resources and we should expect no less.”
Always expecting the government to ‘fix’ things while accepting no personal responsibility is how we got here in the 1st place.
My condolences to the trooper’s family.
To those who say “demolish Mosby Court”: to what end? where will the people go? Drive around the east end, southside, northside. people are suffering in poverty all over the city.
If VCU wasn’t located in Richmond, RVA would be a ghost town.
Don’t felons know it’s illegal to be in possession of firearm?
Slain special agent was 18-year police veteran who founded nonprofit for disadvantaged youth
http://www.richmond.com/local/central-virginia/slain-special-agent-was–year-police-veteran-who-founded/article_565330a6-8df5-5998-9048-fb33addeec3e.html
Mosby is a vicious CANCER on the community and must be eradicated just as aggressively as cancer is eradicated from the body. Stop with the bleeding heart bullshit and line up the bulldozers to take this place down. A fine upstanding human was snuffed out by a worthless thug and the taxpayers will have the benefit of providing this POS with
food, housing and medical care for the rest of his life. I’d like to attend a stoning instead.
@33 “people are suffering in poverty all over the city”….Give it a break. Suffering means having your housing, food, and medical care provided??? Richmond is plagued by laziness!
Kay9 – Voters have been buying this state of affairs for a long time. Our country is pretty well divided into two main classes: those who serve and those who are served. It’s acceptable to spend your life in service to others if that’s what you choose. It’s not acceptable to force that life on those who don’t want to partake: I prefer to give at home.
Kay, thank you for the voice of reason. Unfortunately some blame it on Statues, lack of jobs, (look @ City Website, many to be had) and all the other opportunities that individuals have and after many years of hearing the same excuses, the song and dance is the same. This honorable man lost his life trying to secure what the residents continue to cry out for their safety but yet harbor those diseases. Not sure if JM will allow this post but I agree, the Cancer must be eradicated. Enemy has been identified, who has the guts to stand up to it. Not hard to figure out. May you rest in everlasting peace Mr. Walter, you service is now in another world.
Any info about who was the shooter? My sincere condolences to the family of SA Michael Walker. ?
Well, I want to change my tone a bit.
Previously I mentioned Mosby should be “torn down.”
I still think something needs to change about them, but I do think I was a bit careless in thinking of the current residents.
After reading many of these incidents, I think I grew a bit angry in my little bubble.
I was walking home today after a run and met a guy from Mosby biking home from work (walking up the hill). I think he enjoyed talking to me because he walked with me for a bit, ’til our paths parted.
He was an older fella, talked about how he was a bit tired from not getting into his house until 4 last night, then working this morning. He mentioned he knew the guy who shot the shooter personally (lived close to him) and felt horrible for the cop.
His genuine response to the whole ordeal and candid displeasure for the bad actors completely shattered the perceptions I had built up with the community.
This old veteran seemed like a hard working genuine red blooded American who was happy to take a break from his bike ride home to have some small-talk.
So perhaps I have been a bit too crass in my previous comments.
Sometimes when you happen to step out of your bubble, it can help put things back into a more accurate perspective.
Kay9 You can always move outside the city limits or to the trendy west end
As a teacher who both lives and teaches in the community, I can say with first-hand sobriety that there is more going on here than laziness. To call it only that is to ignore the many deeper issues at play. I can also attest that the solutions to these acts of violence don’t only lie with residents stepping up and turning people in. Who will protect these people if and when they turn in their neighbors? When you grow up in a place like Mosby, you learn that your protection comes from your neighbors and that to turn in a neighbor means losing much of that protection. I’m not saying this is the way things should be… but just that there is more going on here than just people being uncooperative. In Mosby, like everywhere, people are often trying to protect their families the best ways they know how. Last week there was a shooting outside of two schools in Church Hill. Many students from Mosby attend those schools and were on lockdown. It didn’t make the news at all. How are these kids to trust that their wider community cares about them when things like that can happen and it feels like no one thinks they are worth noticing? We ask why people won’t turn in their neighbors … but I think maybe we could ask why they feel like their neighbors are the primary protection they have.
And… I in no way was saying that to at all disrespect the sacrificing work of our police department. I am deeply grateful for all the ways they serve and protect in places like Mosby and elsewhere. I am more just talking about how there are layers of brokenness in our community.. and it’s not a simple issue.
The enemy has been identified, shall you cower and let them win, or shall you stand up and defeat? Those are the two options, which one do you all choose? America wasn’t built on the first.
Can anyone explain to me how the shooter was allowed to move to Mosby court?
“Ball said her brother grew up in the Northern Neck and graduated from Northumberland High School before he moved to Richmond’s Mosby Court.”
http://wtvr.com/2017/05/27/trooper-shooting-suspects-sister-both-families-coping-with-tragedies/
Are there any restrictions on who is allowed to live in Mosby? The shooters record goes back to 2009 and includes some nasty stuff.
The old arguments for and against ghetto culture aside (j and k9) I have an RRHA policy question : how was this man allowed to live in Mosby Court? You mean I paid taxes to support his housing? That, I resent. I’d rather flush the money, by far.
Secondly: who the _____ runs RRHA? And who can fire them? Because no-one, on any side of this seems willing to say RRHA is doing an even adequate job. So let’s clean house and get to where Richmond’s public housing is not a destination for career criminals from the surrounding areas. Because that’s ridiculous. And embarrassing. Do we suck so badly at basic city administration that we can’t enforce public housing policy?
the projects problem will be resolved when the city council decides it is important
Dubois2, I heard on the news that he was the father of 5 kids who lived with him; no mention of anyone else.
Reading through the comments on this post, is anyone else disturbed? Where is the collective outrage over this situation and others that have gone before???? A man charged with protecting the very lives that mowed him down is slaughtered and many of these comments are somewhat accepting as this is life in the city. Are you kidding me?
This man’s young children no longer have a father, his wife is without her husband, and the citizens of this community lost one of the good ones. Are people is this community so numb to the endless violence perpetuated in these taxpayer funded hell holes that it’s becoming normal be witness to these sort of tragedies and move on with your lives once the news cycle has passed? Where is the collective outrage???
Instead of hosting crazy vigils with balloons and colored shirts…the citizens of this community should be pounding down the doors of city hall demanding that Mosby be turned to a pile of dust.
How many more people will have to be murdered before the city takes the only reasonable action available. Demolish this cancer!
I agree with most of your rant, Kay9, but when you proclaim “the citizens of this community should be pounding down the doors of city hall demanding that Mosby be turned to a pile of dust”, where do you propose the hundreds upon hundreds of people that call Mosby home move to?
Kay9 – What? In a city headed by a mayor who lied to police to protect his chums and who followed that period of his political development in the wake of a governor who probably wishes he’d called taxpayers “freeloaders” before Jerry Brown did.
@50 Ray…great question. There is plenty of section 8 housing throughout the greater metro area (yes, counties included) that will welcome these residents. The market will most certainly fix that issue. All of these residents will find another place to call home. The city should not be in the housing business.
Some would argue that this “solution” is just moving a problem. I would have to disagree as this very approach has worked in countless cities throughout the country.
Yes, the people who live in Mosby ARE the problem- they’re not going to change. We must help them along by breaking up the CONCENTRATION and breeding ground of bad, socially unacceptable, behavior. Mosby should be erased from the face of the earth with NO REPLACEMENT planned. Concentrating people into ghettos with no good role models is unhealthy and perpetuates generational bad behavior. This is not cruel- people will still receive housing vouchers, welfare, snap, and medicaid…they just won’t be doing it in a ghetto where there’s a greater chance for them to find a way out of government dependence.
Waiting for Richmond to set a date to vacate…
@Kay9. I completely agree with you. The concentration of large project housing despite all that we know about how they don’t work well baffles me. What also baffles me is why the city is more or less continuing with the same idea with the redevelopment of Creighton Court.
Moving the majority of Creighton Court residents to the old Armstrong High site in what’s being presented as a mixed income utopia of sorts is just crazy. How and why would folks who would buy in at market rates want to move there? And if those market rate units remain empty, do we not have another Creighton, just shinier and prettier? When I’ve asked city officials about the possibility of market rate units largely remaining empty, their responses have been “we’ll address that problem when we come to it.” I’m more and more beginning to think that city officials are afraid of project housing residents and like minded constituents rather than pursuing good policies that make safe thriving communities.
http://wric.com/2017/05/28/richmond-city-and-faith-leaders-speak-out-about-reversing-violent-trend/
“RRHA has confirmed in its tenant database that Travis Ball is not listed as a household member on any Mosby or RRHA lease of any of our public housing communities. While this is not the first homicide to occur in Mosby and RRHA is deeply concerned about the continuing violence which has plagued Mosby Court this year, RRHA has discovered that most of these incidents have involved individuals who have been barred from our communities. The RRHA Board and staff is committed to actively partnering with the RPD, our residents and community partners to address crime in our communities as we strive to provide safe, decent and affordable housing.”
@52 and 53
You make good points.
Richmond is clinging to a failed model– one where we pay for poverty housing again and again E.G. the police we pay for have to spend WAY to much of their time treasure and blood policing the project ghettoes.
Point me to the person that this is good for. Aside, possibly to people like Travis Ball, who perpetrate against their own and others. All day everyday if they themselves are to be believed.
I thInk this city has proved it is not up to the task being a project landlord.
Creighton would be an excellent piece of land for the city to use for income-generating development. That said, there is a (totally flawed, yes) plan in place to move Creighton’s people across 9 mile.
Maybe Mosby should be the first court to be knocked down. Too many murders. Enough already. And no, I do not support the re-creation of new projects to house the current residents. Projects become cruel and unusual punishment. Again and again. Seriously, what’s the point? Jam all the poor people in one place? That’s a moral crime that keeps on giving. Dispersed section 8 throughout the city/county, and some serious oversight on that program please.
@kay9 – I’m really pissed and I’ve had enough but feel powerless. I have absolutely no idea of what I could do to make a difference. The problem seems unsolvable. I hate that there isn’t any anger or attention paid to someone who lost his life protecting this community compared to the anger and marching and media coverage of someone who had a criminal record and never contributed anything good. #tiredofexcuses
@54…CRD. I read that piece as well but I firmly believe what Ball’s sister stated in other reporting- he was living in Mosby. Although he was not officially on a lease or list of residents, he was living there. Probably shacked up with some baby mama working on the 6th!
@53EastEnder
Some of the folks on city council work pretty hard to get the vote of the folks living in the courts- that’s the only thing keeping some of them in office. I’m baffled that some of the same folks keep getting elected when they are in clearly over their heads. Richmond is in desperate need of competent leadership! Yes, this is directed squarely at the council member who “owns” Mosby! She needs to get gone!
Does Rrha think it absolves them of responsibility if the shooter was living in Mosby off the books? Because it doesn’t. They need to be in control of who lives there. Or knock it down.
Who hires and fires the head of RRHA?
Hundreds attend Mosby Court vigil for slain state trooper; funeral information released
http://www.richmond.com/news/local/city-of-richmond/hundreds-attend-mosby-court-vigil-for-slain-state-trooper-funeral/article_9a873f7b-f4f3-5978-9add-0ed58039f0e6.html
Williams: Broken Mosby Court must be city’s top priority
http://www.richmond.com/news/local/michael-paul-williams/williams-broken-mosby-court-must-be-city-s-top-priority/article_55dcd37f-fafe-55f0-9f9d-6f20f3e3e82f.html
I hope the murderer is executed as quickly as possible. That piece of crap should have departed the planet a long time ago. My deepest sympathies to the Walker family. The loss of this man is a great loss to his family, his friends and his community. Where is the outrage that an Officer was shot??
Suspect in special agent’s slaying, who had a Mosby Court address, was on housing authority’s banned list
http://www.richmond.com/news/local/suspect-in-special-agent-s-slaying-who-had-a-mosby/article_beff41e3-65ba-55ab-b483-3a7ef44f6e0c.html
RRHA evicting girlfriend of man accused of killing State Police special agent in Mosby
http://www.richmond.com/local/city-of-richmond/rrha-evicting-woman-who-allowed-suspected-shooter-of-special-agent/article_f7a02cac-1514-59c4-bb9f-0df2940ed761.html
you go into a “court”, thats what happens!!! raze em all!!
Man accused of shooting State Police special agent in Mosby Court indicted on capital murder charge
http://www.richmond.com/local/crime/man-accused-of-shooting-state-police-special-agent-in-mosby/article_ac91c1cb-96d7-5a61-8693-bd18a7f510db.html