Virginia Beach Officer Who Fatally Shot A Black Man Did Not Have Bodycam Activated

Multiple mass shootings occurred Friday night in Virginia Beach, and the officer who was called to the scene shot someone to death and did not have his body camera activated. 

The identity of the officer has not been released. Still, Virginia Beach Police Chief Paul Neudigate said in a news conference on Saturday that it’s unclear why the officer’s camera was not activated. 

The unnamed officer claimed the life of 25-year-old Donovan Lynch, a Black man. 

According to CNN, Lynch was killed one block away from where Deshayla Harris, 28, died in a separate shooting. 

With the extensive history of police brutality on the black community, there were inevitably questions regarding whether Lynch was armed or not. 

“I do not have the answers that the community is looking for in regards to this death right now,” Neudigate said. “What I can tell you is that there was a firearm recovered in the vicinity of where this incident occurred.”

An investigation is ongoing, and until it concludes, the officer has been placed on administrative assignment. 

Aforementioned, the officer was responding to two other shootings that happened prior.

The shooting unrelated to Lynch and Harris was the result of a fight. 

“We now know that that started as a physical fight, an argument into a physical fight, that at some point escalated into gunfire,” Neudigate said.

The people have been arrested in connection to this shooting. 

“I feel sick at the news of yet another senseless mass shooting — in a community already scarred by the scourge of gun violence,” US Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, said. “We cannot stand by as more families lose loved ones. The time for Congress to act on gun violence is NOW.”