A man and a woman are dead, and seven others are hospitalized after a shooting erupted during a street fight in Richmond, Virginia's Shockoe Bottom neighborhood early Saturday morning. Both victims suffered multiple gunshot wounds and died at the scene.
Police Chief Rick Edwards told reporters the violence broke out at about 2:45 a.m. in the historic entertainment district. A police officer already in the area witnessed what Edwards described as "a large commotion," with cars speeding away from the scene.
"It seemed like a fight started, individuals intervened in that fight, and shots were fired."
Three men and four women were hospitalized with gunshot wounds. Edwards said there were at least two shooters. He did not say whether anyone had been arrested.
Nine people were shot. Two dead. Multiple shooters. And by Saturday afternoon, no reported arrests, and the police department was responding to emails seeking more information.
The Post reports that several family members had gathered for a birthday celebration in the area, with at least one of the deceased described as having been caught in the crossfire. That detail, if confirmed, makes the tragedy even more pointed: people out celebrating a life, losing theirs to someone else's violence.
Richmond's Shockoe Bottom is one of those neighborhoods that cities love to market. Historic. Revitalized. Full of restaurants and nightlife. It is also, evidently, a place where a fight at a quarter to three in the morning can turn into a mass shooting with at least two gunmen opening fire into a crowd.
This is the reality that Americans in cities across the country have grown grimly accustomed to. The details shift. The city name changes. The body count ticks up or down. But the architecture of the event is nearly always the same:
Every one of these incidents invites the same hollow ritual. Vigils. Calls for "community healing." Press conferences where officials express shock that no reasonable person actually feels anymore. Then the news cycle moves on, and nothing structural changes.
The conservative position on this is straightforward: enforce the laws already on the books. People carrying firearms illegally in nightlife districts at 2:45 a.m. and opening fire into crowds are not people who failed because of a lack of social programs. They are criminals. The question worth asking is whether they were known to law enforcement, whether they were out on lenient bail or early release, and whether the criminal justice system in Richmond had opportunities to prevent this that it chose not to take.
Those are the questions that matter. Chief Edwards did not address them on Saturday, and no one appears to have pressed him on it.
Families who came out for a birthday celebration will carry Saturday morning with them for the rest of their lives. The shooters, whoever they are, turned a city block into a crime scene and may still be walking free.
Americans deserve to go out on a Friday night without calculating whether they'll make it home. That used to be a baseline expectation, not a political statement. Somewhere along the way, we decided that holding violent criminals accountable was too much to ask.
Richmond's Shockoe Bottom is historic, all right. It just added a chapter no one will put on a brochure.
