A tragedy, from rural Virginia.

This is not a happy story.


Yesterday I thought was a good day; school was pretty chill, I hung out with my buds afterwards because soccer conditioning was canceled, then I got the lowdown on Super Smash Bros. Brawl because it was released in Japan.

It was chill, until today.

Today I found out that yesterday was not a good a day at all, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Let me set my story up here, it's gonna be a long one.

This isn't the first disturbing or tragic story I could tell you from my town, but it's safer than ... some places, but this unlikely series of events has impacted me a lot more, and it really makes you think.

I live in Prince Edward County, in the heart of Virginia. My school is in good ol' Farmville, the town now most known for the Brown v. Board of Education supreme court case (the new high school was pictured and written about in TIME just a couple years ago for the anniversary of the school closings and desegregation movement).

Prince Edward county has roughly 20,000 residents, about 6,000 in Farmville. It's no city, but it's the most populated area for a good 50 miles. A lot of people from the neighboring counties come to shop, eat out, etc.

Here, we don't really have gangs, but we have what some of us like to deem "wannabe gangs". You can picture them like normal city gangs, but less collected, rarely dangerous, and kinda sad.

Now, there were several guys who graduated from my high school last year, but I really didn't know them at all. Apparently they got into a fight at a college party a while ago; I don't know how recent this was, but I'm guessing it was within the past month. They are somehow involved in a couple of the "wannabe gangs".

So we have some dudes, 18-19 years old, in the projects of rural Virginia who don't like each other, and yesterday one of them decided to settle things the hard way. He pulled a gun on one of the other guys, and shot him five times in the back.

But that is not the half of it.

I'm going to have to tell you about the cops in this area. There is a university in the town and a private college out in the county and they each have their own set of cops. Then you have the town cops of course. Then there's the sheriff's office. And state cops around sometimes. They're everywhere and they're all amazingly crazy. They have virtually nothing to do so they'll follow people around and even arrest college students who are walking out of bars (they will sit there and wait for them to come out, then arrest them for public display). Someone I know was involved in a drug bust not too long ago and it was really no big deal, but five cruisers showed up at the scene and the cops were armed with M16s. Yeah, they overkill everything.

Back to the story.

The shooting occurred at night, around 11 o'clock (hence why I didn't find out this stuff till today) and of course all the cops in a twenty mile radius were probably called to the scene (so roughly 6,000 I reckon) and one of the state officers was driving to the scene at 70 mph, I don't know exactly what road he was on at the time, but I believe it was one of the back roads, so narrow and probably no double line.

Tragically, my principal's family was returning home from a basketball game at the same time. They crashed with the officer in a head-on collision.

They survived the crash and were air lifted to the medical center at UVA, but my principal's husband died in surgery a couple hours after the crash.

My principal, her son who is in my class, and the state officer are all in critical condition, but the son is conscious and supposed to recover well, luckily he was in the back of the car.

My principal is in a coma and has suffered serious head trauma, and her future condition is still questionable, we should know tomorrow.

The officer has apparently taken major damage to both of his legs, I guess possibly disabling him for the rest of his life.

It is still unknown if the fault of the accident lies with the officer or not, but obviously the true cause of the problem was the shooting in the projects, that led to a series of tragic events.

When I got to school this morning, as soon as I stepped out of my car, one of my friends pointed out the three cruisers from the sheriff's office, I found out later that they were worried about gang retaliation towards gang members in the high school. Of course rumors floated about and I guess I have more details, but I'll share the facts for now.


Of course I see the son of the principal almost every day, but I'm not friends with him or anything, but it's really tragic, and I of course have friends who are closer with him, and now his family is torn apart. Hopefully his mother will recover well, that's all we can ask for.

All because of some idiot with a gun. In fucking Farmville, Virginia. It's a shithole. It's a shithole.

Ouch man, im just glad to hear evrything with you and your family is okay.
Yeah man, i live in NY, things like this happen on a regular bases. You can't do anything but just try to stay away from it.

I'm sorry to hear all this, i hope everyone recovers.

Be good man, be good.

~Saad

Weird how 1 problem can cause another that had nothing to do with first one :\

sorry to hear that dude.

wow...thats really awful. i hope that the guy you know gets better

I hope everything turns out for the good. It's sorry to hear about your Principle, her husband and there son. You don't normally get this in The UK unless you live in a place like London and are out at night.

All you can do is comfort the boy when you have the chance too, It doesn't matter if you are not friends... He will want to feel the love and warmth from those that are around him every day.

well, at least he wasn't a best friend of yours....its sad, but at least 4 of your friends haven't committed suicide in the last 3 months....and at least your gangs don't shoot people often...

Hope for the best for them
If this happened where i lived things would really go crazy

Oh man, sounds sad. I feel for the officer and your principles family.

Sorry to hear that
How's the principle's condition now?

Damn, that sucks.

How many officers do you really need at a shooting? They shouldn't need to danger themselves and others on the road if there's already an abundance of them there.

First of all and irrelevently: Brown vs BOE was from Topeka, KS - Although perhaps your school had a role in it too.

Second and also irrelevently: I go to UVA.


Now on a serious note, that seriously is horrible.
I don't consider this a violent area, but to think that trivial hatred can lead to something like this is just horrible.

It's good to hear that your classmate will be alright, but hopefully your principal is as well. For him to have to grow up without parents would be a tragedy...

I didn't know Brown vs BOE was a combination of 4.
I just knew that it was Brown vs Topeka Board of Ed.

hope everything turns out ok

That really sucks.

Dude. Shit that's intense. I feel incredibly sorry for that family and the whole situation.

Wow that sucks, my condolences to the Principals husband and i wish all the other members of the collision a speedy recovery

If it was the officers fault i know this is a terrible thing to say but it is incredibly ironic.

And this is why I hate rap and hip hop...as they more than likely played a significant role in this tragedy.

That really sucks man, hope everything works out alright.

I spent 7 years in a small NC town then moved to Florida...just before I moved a guy I had known for all 7 of those years was killed in a car accident, so I kinda know the feeling.

Out of all the things you can blame Matt, you blame a type of music