DEA bust outside a Virginia Beach Walmart ended with injuries, damaged cars and a shot fired
VIRGINIA BEACH VA June 27 2019
Jeremiah Shaw walked into the Walmart on Phoenix Road Tuesday night to do a little shopping with his 7-year-old son. He walked out a moment later to a scene straight out of an action movie.
Law enforcement officers with military-style rifles drawn. Multiple wrecked vehicles, including a black SUV that had plowed through some pots and run over a tree. And three men in custody.
“There was a lot of chaos,” Shaw, a former firefighter, said in an interview. “Customers didn’t know what was going on.”
Law enforcement officials declined to say much about what Shaw and his son stumbled onto in the store’s parking lot. Virginia Beach police referred questions to a Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman, who would only describe it as a “joint law enforcement operation.”
It apparently didn’t go as planned. Special Agent Heath Anderson said members of a DEA taskforce approached a vehicle about 6:23 p.m. in the parking lot when the driver tried to flee.
In the process, Anderson said, the vehicle struck multiple officers and then multiple law-enforcement vehicles with officers inside. One civilian vehicle also was hit.
Agents, detectives and one citizen sustained minor injuries, Anderson said.
During the melee, one task force member fired his weapon. Anderson said no one was hit, though.
“It should be noted that enforcement operations of this nature are routinely conducted and shooting incidents are extremely rare,” he said in a statement.
Anderson confirmed three suspects were taken into custody following the shooting, but declined to identify them or the charges they face because of the “ongoing criminal investigation.”
Shaw said the incident created a stir at the store. He recalled hearing what sounded like a car crash outside and starting to walk back to the entrance to see if anyone was injured and needed help. Then, he said, people started running inside yelling, “They’ve got guns! They’ve got guns!”
Shaw grabbed his son and started heading to the opposite corner of the store, thinking he could escape out the back if something was happening. But he kept looking back and people looked less and less alarmed.
When Shaw eventually peaked out front, he saw police and DEA agents all over the parking lot in tactical gear.
“It had all the looks to me of the conclusion of a long undercover investigation,” he said. “It’s not like this guy just got pulled over for speeding.”
