By MADISON BROWN
Fredericksburg Today
A Fredericksburg police officer shot and killed a man at the 1400 block of Sunken Road this morning around 8:00am. According to a police press release, the man approached the responding officer with a knife moments before the shooting. Officers attempted to render life-saving care before EMS transported the man to Mary Washington Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The city has not yet released the names of the responding officer or the man. The officer has been placed on administrative leave while Virginia State Police conduct an investigation.
Police said they got reports the man was demanding money from multiple people in the 1400 block of Sunken Road before he approached an older man with a knife.
Jim Hall, a retired newspaper journalist, witnessed the incident outside his home Friday morning. He estimated that he was ten to twenty yards away from the scene, and identified the victim as a white male in his late 30s of medium build.
“There was a young man, there was an older man, and there was a middle-aged woman,” Hall said. “The young man was bothering, touching, pushing, the older man, and I saw him knock the man down twice. The woman was circling the whole mess trying to stop it, trying to get in between.”
Hall said he didn’t see a knife on the younger man, but other neighbors did. “Soon the blue lights and the police car came roaring down Sunken Hill and stopped right beside him,” he said. “The cop was yelling at the young man, and the young man definitely made a motion towards the cop.
“Bang, bang, bang. I think it was maybe five or six shots. He didn’t go down right away, and then he finally did and he was laying in the street.”
More officers arrived at the scene and shouted at the man lying on the street to drop his knife. Eventually, an officer kicked the knife away. Police say officers attempted to give the man care until medics arrived.
Hall says city detectives interviewed the neighbors, and state police arrived and began conducting interviews later in the day.
The last time a Fredericksburg City police officer shot and killed someone when responding to an incident was in 2016.
