The Breeze Following Redpoint shooting, students reevaluate off-campus safety

By GRANT JOHNSON & ELEANOR SHAW The Breeze

Junior Léa Nuevo wasn’t in her Redpoint apartment when shots were fired on the 2300 block of Newberry Lane overnight Friday. She was with her boyfriend, junior Nico McMillen, 11 minutes away in his North 38 apartment and caught wind of the commotion after seeing Sidechat “going off.”

First, Nuevo texted who she knew on Newberry Lane. But shortly after, she thought, “Why is this happening again?”

Redpoint became the fourth off-campus residential complex in six months near JMU to experience a shooting, joining Foxhill Townhomes in October, The Hills: Southview in December and North 38 in January. But Redpoint carved its own list, the only of those four where people died.

In the aftermath of now four shootings and a week removed from a fatal one, JMU students are grappling with a new definition of safety — one that, despite many living in the “Friendly City,” is marred with violence and doesn’t escape the undertone of shootings dotting the rest of America.

“It’s sad to say,” Nuevo said, “we’re used to it.”

Do JMU students feel safe off campus?

Friday’s overnight shooting killed two non-JMU students — 22-year-old D’angelo Marquise Gracy and 17-year-old Calour Fields, a Harrisonburg High School student — at a party at Redpoint, according to a press release from the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office on Saturday morning. As of Wednesday evening, the sheriff’s office hasn’t announced that the suspect has been captured.

In an email to The Breeze on Wednesday, Mike Parks, director of communications for the City of Harrisonburg, said no injuries were reported for either the North 38 or Southview shootings, while eight people suffered gunshot wounds during the Foxhill shooting.

Rockingham County Sheriff Bryan Hutcheson said, in the last six months, Redpoint was the sole shooting outside of a residential complex where JMU students live outside the jurisdiction of the Harrisonburg Police Department.

“It’s just been that one this past weekend and then well over six months prior, like a long time before, since we’ve had anything like that,” Hutcheson said.

Parks said there have been three “incidents of malicious shootings with injury” in Harrisonburg in the same time frame, two of which didn’t occur in immediate proximity to where JMU students live off campus.

The Breeze spoke to 14 JMU students in the aftermath of the Redpoint shooting in the areas around three off-campus JMU apartment complexes — Redpoint, Foxhill and North 38 — that have experienced shootings in the last six months. Multiple students told The Breeze that, generally speaking, they feel safe in Harrisonburg, but that four recent shootings in what should be calm residential complexes have changed their perspectives for the worse.

For senior and Redpoint resident Abigail Chambers, she said the shooting overnight Friday reinforced the importance to be vigilant about where her friends are and of her surroundings. Nuevo said the shooting Friday night “for sure” changed her perspective about what can happen in a town like Harrisonburg — which, according to CrimeGrade.org, has an overall grade of B- between its violent, property and “other” crime; the site’s data is “updated regularly.” see REDPOINT PART I, page 4 harrisonburgmill.com