From revelry to tragedy on Granby Street
Witnesses, friends describe the harrowing night Sierra Jenkins was killed in Norfolk
Somehow at the end of this night of karaoke and revelry, Sierra Jenkins lay on the sidewalk along a bustling Norfolk street, surrounded by friends who frantically tried to find the wound from which she was bleeding.
Unable to speak, Jenkins’ hand was held by a young man who’d known her for years.
Her grip was tight; she still had life in her. But as they waited for an ambulance, it got weaker. And just before the paramedics showed up, she started to let go.
As Sierra’s eyes started to close and her lips became pale, another woman in the group had the terrifying thought: She’s not going to make it.
Jenkins, a Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press reporter, died at the hospital. She was one of five people hit by gunfire — two were killed — in the March 19 shooting that rocked downtown Norfolk and reverberated to the state capital, with Gov. Glenn Youngkin sending his condolences.
Norfolk police have released few details about the incident to the public — or Jenkins’ family — leaving far more questions than answers. To construct a detailed account of the shooting — and Jenkins’ final hours leading up to it — The Pilot tracked down and interviewed numerous witnesses who were with her that night and when she was shot outside Chicho’s Pizza Backstage on Granby Street.
Jenkins, who had turned 25 a week earlier, was in a group of 10 that evening. It included her best friend, Demmi Nimer, who was in town from Memphis for a funeral. Most of the people in the group were connected to Nimer — including her three siblings and her two sisters’ boyfriends.
They met up first at Boil Bay, a seafood restaurant in Virginia Beach that also had karaoke that night.
The group was in a jovial mood. Jenkins was particularly upbeat, laughing and wanting to dance with Nimer, said Jordan Patricio, who is dating one of Nimer’s sisters.
“As soon as we got to Boil Bay, (Jenkins) grabbed my girlfriend
and said they needed to be backup dancers for Demmi, who was doing karaoke to TLC’s ‘No Scrubs,’ ” Patricio, 26, said.
Before they moved on to Chicho’s, Jenkins and a few others went to her apartment so she could change outfits. The group eventually met at Chicho’s about midnight.
The bar was pretty empty when they first arrived, but quickly became crowded. The group grabbed drinks — some did tequila shots — and danced.
About 1 a.m., Patricio saw a bouncer kick out a Black man with short hair who had been “very touchy” with some women. Patricio said the man was wearing an olive-colored hoodie.
Otherwise, the group saw no signs of trouble.
“I was just focused on this great night we had had,” said Kayla Brown, who was visiting Nimer from Philadelphia. “We just had so much fun with each other.”
The group split up around 1:30 a.m. as the bar was closing, with some heading outside while three others stayed behind to use the bathroom.
Jenkins walked outside with Brown and sisters Demmi and Davee Nimer.
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, gunshots rang out.
The four women crouched down on the sidewalk and instinctively hunched over one another. Brown’s heart raced as she shouted for them to run.
“I was yelling, ‘We have to go, we have to go,’ ” Brown, 27, said.
But Jenkins was frozen. Thinking she was in shock, Brown reached out and touched her face.
“She didn’t say anything, but her eyes were wide open, and she made a grunting sound,” Brown said. “Then she fell to the ground and we were all over her, trying to figure out what had happened. … I said, ‘Talk to me Sierra, tell me where it hurts,’ but she wasn’t responding.”
Blood was splattered on Jenkins’ shoes, but they couldn’t find the bullet wound, Brown said.
Patricio, who had been walking ahead of the four women, ran back and saw that Jenkins was injured.
“She wasn’t responding to us; she was just grunting and moaning,” he said. “When I lifted my hand from her, I saw blood, but we couldn’t find the wound. … Then I saw it was around her armpit.”
The minutes that followed were chaotic as a crowd formed around Jenkins. Demmi was screaming. Two women passersby used someone’s shirt to apply pressure to the wound. Patricio took Jenkins’ hand and held on until paramedics arrived.
Meanwhile, inside Chicho’s, Donna Nimer was frantic. She was trapped inside. Bouncers locked the doors after hearing the gunshots and wouldn’t let anyone out, she said.
“I was freaking out because I could hear my sister screaming,” she said.
Sephie Campinha, a friend of Patricio’s, had been walking to the front door to leave when she heard gunfire. She ran back to the bathroom, thinking it was the safest spot, but left after a few minutes because it was too crowded, then hid under a table.
She overheard a young woman on her cell phone describe the gunman as a lighter-skinned Black man in a hoodie and presumed the girl had seen the shooter through a window.
The bouncers opened the doors after about 15 minutes, Campinha said. By the time she walked outside, paramedics had arrived.
Patricio and Davee, his girlfriend, went to his car after an ambulance took Jenkins away. Davee opened her purse to get her cell phone and saw a bullet had pierced the bag and was stuck in her phone, Patricio said.
At Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, only those closest to the victims were allowed to go inside, Patricio said.
Demmi went in while the others stayed outside, “worrying and hugging each other and just crying a lot.”
‘She’s gone, she’s gone’
Hundreds of miles away in Loganville, Georgia, Moniquekia Thompson woke up to texts and calls from a cousin and brother — who had been contacted by Demmi — saying her daughter had been shot.
It was about 3:45 a.m., and Thompson said she had slept through earlier calls, including one from a police officer.
Jenkins’ father, Maurice Jenkins, said Thompson called at 4 a.m. to tell him Sierra was hurt.
Around that time, Demmi walked out of the hospital and sank down on the curb.
“She was a wreck,” Brown said. “I asked what had happened and Demmi just kept saying, ‘She’s gone, she’s gone.’ ”
Patricio and Davee had gone home to get new clothes for Demmi and Brown, who had bloodstains on theirs. But Brown remained at the hospital to support Demmi, who had been best friends with Sierra since middle school.
“All she talks about is Sierra; Sierra is her person,” Brown said.
Maurice, who lives in Virginia Beach, was en route to the hospital by 4:20 a.m. when a Norfolk police detective called his cell phone.
“Is this Maurice Jenkins, the father of Sierra Jenkins?” the detective asked.
“Yes,” Maurice replied. “You need to get to Norfolk General as soon as you can,” the detective said, according to Maurice. “You just need to get down here.”
“And unfortunately, man, at that point, I just felt it,” Maurice said. “I knew from there . ... Of course I had to get there and wait around for them to come up to me and let me know for sure, but when I got that call, man — I
just knew.”
At the hospital, Maurice said a detective showed him a cell phone photo of his daughter, asking him to confirm her identity.
Thompson was on speaker phone with Maurice when they learned Sierra had died. It was an “out-of-body” experience, she said.
She had spoken to her daughter only a few earlier to give her a recipe for brown stew chicken. Sierra had just celebrated her birthday, and her mother said she had many goals to accomplish. She wanted to write a book, earn a master’s degree, and continue her journalism career.
Thompson then woke Sierra’s 17-year-old sister and broke the news.
“I know that I’m the mom, but (Sierra) was the mom, too. They were that close. She was the mama bear when mommy wasn’t there,” Thompson said.
Thompson’s sister, who lives nearby in Georgia, quickly drove over.
“We all just sat in the living room and cried, feeling so numb,” Thompson said.
‘If you saw something, say something’
On Monday, Maurice said he got a call from Norfolk Police Chief Larry Boone, who told him he “knew Sierra personally” as she had interviewed him for news stories for The Pilot. The chief offered his condolences.
“He assured me that they were going to put all the effort in to figure out who was responsible for this,” Maurice said.
But he said police haven’t shared any information about suspects or about what happened, to include rumors he heard about someone leaving the restaurant to get a gun and then coming back and opening fire.
Maurice said that while he’s “not an eye-for-an-eye kind of guy,” he hopes that anyone who knows what happened will come forward.
“The worst thing that could happen is that this guy never gets found,” he said.
Thompson, who worked as a police dispatcher in Georgia for six years, said she’s also disappointed by the lack of communication from Norfolk police.
She implored anyone with information about the gunman to come forward.
“I’m burying my baby just because she wanted to go out and have a good time,” Thompson said. “If you saw something, say something, because she would have done it for you.”