Newport News police cleared in killing of man

Prosecutors say action was justified after ambush in 2019

Clearing the officers of any criminal wrongdoing, the Newport news commonwealth’s attorney’s office said Jerome Michael Uzzle “posed an imminent threat of serious physical harm to members of the public as well as to officers” when an officer shot him to death on Aug, 17, 2019, at the Cottage Grove apartments, off Jefferson Avenue south of Briarfield Road.

The incident began a couple of hours earlier, at 3:34 p.m., when Chandra Eason Uzzle, 34, was shot multiple times in her white Mercedes outside the Circle K gas station, near an Uno Pizzaria outside Kiln Creek. Police found her dead at her steering wheel.

Detectives viewed surveillance video from the gas station, and determined that Uzzle was the shooter, driving away in a Chrysler 300 sedan.

Police went to the couple’s home on Madison Avenue at the Cottage Grove Apartments. About 5:30 p.m., Officer Robert Stewart and a civilian taking part in the department’s “Ride-Along” program were parked in a police SUV at the rear of the perimeter, a couple blocks from Uzzle’s home.

That’s when the gunman suddenly walked up behind them.

“Uzzle approached the driver’s side window of Stewart’s marked police vehicle and fired multiple rounds from his 9mm firearm into the vehicle,” the commonwealth’s attorney’s memorandum on the incident said. Stewart was hit and wounded, but “was able to return two shots from his service weapon before it misfired and became inoperable.”

Stewart and the civilian — a woman named Macy Hooper —“sustained serious injuries” in the shooting. Documents say Hooper, the SUV’s front seat passenger, was shot several times.

“This shooting was directly observed by Officer Branden Kidder, whose police vehicle was parked around the corner from Officer Stewart’s vehicle,” the prosecutor’s report said. “Kidder immediately re-positioned his car to get closer and opened fire on the armed suspect as soon as he exited his police vehicle.”

“Uzzle fled on foot through the apartment complex,” the report said. “Uzzle was shot twice, once in the torso and once in the thigh, and was apprehended seconds thereafter when he fell to the ground.”

He died a few hours later at Riverside Regional Medical Center.

Assistant State Medical Examiner Dr. Wendy Gunther said Uzzle died of a torso wound, with a state laboratory finding that the fatal round was fired from Kidder’s gun. Laboratory analysis also found that the weapon used to shoot Stewart and Hooper was the same one used to kill Uzzle’s wife a few hours earlier.

Newport News Chief Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Valerie Spencer Muth, who wrote the prosecution’s report over the summer, said it was sent to Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew.

The report says that Virginia law requires prosecutors to analyze cases of police use of deadly force “through the eyes of the officer involved.”

“We examine this incident by considering what the officer knew in the moments leading up to the shooting, and whether it was reasonable for the officer who discharged his firearm to believe that there was an imminent threat of serious bodily harm to himself or others,” the report said.

Officers are allowed to use deadly force when they perceive an “imminent threat of serious bodily harm” to themselves or others.

“It is clear that Jerome Uzzle posed an imminent threat of serious physical harm to members of the public as well as to officers in his vicinity,” the report said. “Therefore, Officer Kidder’s use of deadly force in the death of Mr. Uzzle was justified by the facts and the law. This office will take no further action in this matter.”

Stewart was released from the hospital four days after the shooting, while Hooper was released about three days after that. Both officers are still with the force and on active duty, while Hooper’s status isn’t immediately clear.

Drew called both police officers heroes shortly after the incident, saying that “their actions saved lives.”

“This was an ambush-style shooting,” he said at a press conference after the shooting. “By the grace of God, both (Stewart and the civilian) are still with us today.”