WPD investigate Oxford shooting
Winchester Police are still investigating a shooting incident that occurred Jan. 25 on Oxford Drive, but they think they know who committed the crime.
Capt. James Hall of the Winchester Police Department said officers responded to a report of shots fired in the Oxford Drive area around 3 a.m. and found a vehicle that had been struck multiple times by bullets.
Hall said there were three people in the car that was struck — two adults and a juvenile — but no one was injured.
The next day, officers learned that a couple of residences, both sides of a duplex, also were hit by gunfire, causing property damage, but again, no one was hurt.
“We have evidence to believe it was a drug transaction, and we have a fairly good idea who the perpetrators are, but we’re trying to gather more evidence” to make arrests, Hall said.
“We believe one vehicle was following the other, chasing them down the street,” he said. The vehicle that was chasing the other one was the one that was hit by bullets from a handgun when the one being followed stopped and someone from that vehicle fired at their pursuers, he said.
Constance Page, a former resident of the area, said in Facebook messages that one of the duplex apartments that was hit was 1905 Saxon Court, across the street from Summit Apartments. She later heard that an address on Surrey Court was struck by bullets.
Page said that her former brother-in-law lives in one of the duplexes that was hit, and her niece was supposed to have been at the residence that night and she and her nephews often sit or sleep on a couch that was struck.
“This could have been a dead child,” she said.
One woman who commented on Page’s Facebook post said that a few years ago, her cousin was killed by a random bullet that came into her apartment from a home invasion in the same area.
The area has been the site of a couple of shooting incidents in recent years.
A shooting during a home invasion involving drugs in 2014 killed 19-year-old Amber Caudill when a bullet went through the floor of the apartment above hers. Two others were injured in that shooting as well.
Another incident occurred in 2016 when shots were fired in an apartment and the bullets went through the floor, becoming lodged in a child’s mattress. No one was injured in that incident.
Page, who now lives in another city, and who authorized the Sun to use her name and Facebook post, said the neighborhood has a reputation for crime.
“These apartments are notorious for constant, drug-related foot traffic,” she said.