NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — An email from the East Beach Homeowners Association to residents detailed something most people wouldn’t expect to happen in a normally quiet neighborhood.
“Two people reported a car, I think it was a silver sedan, driving by slowing down window rolling down and being shot with what they thought was a pellet gun.” said Jeremy Pelstring, East Beach HOA vice president.
The email states it happened north of Pleasant Avenue on 27th Bay Street and 28th Bay Street Wednesday night.
In a local Facebook group, one woman described her neighbor being shot by pellets 15 times while walking her dog.
Another resident posted that she heard a plastic cracking sound before being hit twice in the back.
However, Pelstring told 10 On Your Side that the HOA doesn’t believe it was pellets they were hit with.
“Based on the fact that there’s no pellets, I think it was probably one of those new Orbeez guns with water-filled gels,” he said, “It’s like being shot by a low velocity paint ball.”
However, that doesn’t change the fact that the incident was still an assault.
“It’s not obviously life-threatening,” Pelstring said, “but it’s still considered an assault and it can be frightening when … a car slows down and drives by you and the window rolls down and all of a sudden you’re getting shot by something.”
While he said the situation was unusual, he explained the area isn’t a stranger to unexpected guests.
“We’ll have people coming into the neighborhood late at midnight to 4:30 in the morning and checking car and door handles to root through cars,” he said, “kind of a regular occurrence in the area.”
Neighbor Paul Giovino called it concerning, saying most neighbors are now on alert.
“Everybody that’s reading the post I’m very sure is alert about it,” Giovino said. “We’re all being visual about it and we all keep our lights on at night to make sure that nothing bad happens around here.”
Pelstring advised residents to stay alert and to call the Norfolk Police non-emergency line if anything like this happens again.
