HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) — A 12-year-old boy who was critically injured in a shooting over the weekend at Buckroe Beach is now in stable condition.
10 On Your Side has learned that the boy, who is hospitalized at Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters in Norfolk, is expected to undergo more surgery on Tuesday.
The boy was initially hospitalized with life-threatening injuries after he and three others were injured in the shooting.
The other three victims — a 7-year-old girl, a 31-year-old woman and a 52-year-old man — were all expected to be OK.
Officers on patrol in the area responded after they heard several shots fired just before 8 p.m. on Saturday.
Gaylene Kanoyton says she was enjoying her Saturday evening at Buckroe Beach just like hundreds of others when bullets began spraying.
“It’s frightening, but it also makes me angry, because we really need to do some more in our community, we need to do more about guns, gun control, set some more gun laws,” she said. “We shouldn’t have a child down in CHKD fighting for their lives, we shouldn’t have that.”
Gaylene’s home was also hit
“My next door neighbors came over and said ‘there’s a shooting, there’s been a shooting and two of the bullets hit your house.’ And I was like ‘really?’ And I came out and then I saw the bullet holes and what really scared me was that one of the holes is right where the chair where I sit in the evenings and relax.”
She doesn’t believe this was an accident.
“It had to be erratic, erratic shooting, when they were shooting each other or whoever was involved what ever was happening it had to be erratic because the bullets were going everywhere and came over here and went further down,” she said.
She says this won’t stop people from having a good time, but something needs to change.
“For children to come to a playground and play or go to the beach, families go to the beach, they should not have to worry about being shot,” she said.
Police say they have received a lot of tips on identifying the shooter and they are now in the process of narrowing those down. We will keep you updated on air and online.