VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — The leader of the Virginia Beach Fire Department wants to make clear that while firefighters may have been “kicked” and “pushed” while responding to a fatal motorcycle crash, they were not “attacked.”
The crash June 29 in the 900 block of Atlantis Drive claimed the life of Virginia Beach resident Carl Lee Walton Jr., 28. He had been driving his brand new Suzuki motorcycle, according to family members, when he lost control, causing him to be thrown off the bike, ultimately striking a tree.
Walton died on the way to the hospital, Virginia Beach Police said.
But the reason Fire Chief David Hutchinson, EMS Chiff Ed Brazle, Deputy Police Chief Pat Gallagher and several other members of the city’s public safety team gathered in the Seatack community Wednesday — at the scene of Walton’s death — was to “address misperceptions and inaccurate reports” surrounding the response to the crash.
The day after Walton’s death, a fire department daily briefing report obtained by WAVY-TV 10 detailed that upon the firefighters’ arrival, they found a single motorcycle rider in cardiac arrest with significant trauma.
A spokesperson with the fire department confirmed the first unit arrived on scene a little over four minutes from the first emergency call.
“While treating [Walton], an unruly crowd gathered and rapidly grew in size and out of control, surrounding the scene in a dead end court,” the report said. “Mulitple [firefighters] … were pushed and kicked while performing [patient] care.”
While Hutchinson stands by what his firefighters said in the report, he said describing the actions as an “attack,” as WAVY-TV and other media outlets did in original reports, is wrong.
“You know you can look at what means ‘attacked’ to you and what it means to me and we are going to have different levels of what that means,” Hutchinson said.
Rather, he indicated actions taken against firefighters occurred out of emotion. No firefighters were injured as a result of what occurred and Hutchinson said actions in no way inhibited the care Walton received. No charges were filed.
“I’m not condoning it. You shouldn’t be putting your hands on anything to impede us from trying to save someone’s life,” Hutchinson said. “But when you have a scene that is this traumatic and this much going on at this time in our life. You know, you can see how this stuff is going to happen at times.”
Hutchinson, who’s been chief since 2017 and with the department since 1988, said he can recall similar events occurring at least five other times in his career.
When asked why the daily briefing report didn’t detail that the “unruly” and “out of control” crowd may have been driven by emotions, Hutchinson responded by saying “that’s not our job to worry about how y’all interpret our internal documents. I’m sorry, it’s just not.”
However, family members and those who were on the scene that night at the Atlantis Apartments contend that no event, other than the loss of their loved one, ever did happen.
“Nobody was kicked … [firefighters] were just afraid when they got out there because so many people were gathered around,” said Denise Walton, 49, Carl Walton’s mother. “It’s sad to me that somebody would say somebody was attacked and all this stuff when that’s not true … I have it on video where there was working on my son everybody gave him enough space to do what they have to do.”
WAVY-TV 10 viewed the video Denise Walton was referring to and decided not to include it in our coverage as it showed treatment of the injured man and police officers in the background. A spokesperson for VB Police said if something occurred with firefighters and people at the scene, it happened before officers arrived.
“Police were great. Police said ‘Anything you need we are here,'” said Carmen Walton, 25, Walton’s younger sister who said she was “hysteric” when firefighters arrived. She recalled that two people may have had to come over and calm her down at the scene, but said she knows she didn’t kick anyone.
“Who would prevent their own sibling from being saved?” Carmen Walton said.
The family did follow the ambulance to Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital.
The briefing detailed that members of the Atlantis Apartments crowd began to “jump on, kick and hit multiple EMS vehicles causing damage.”
On Wednesday, Brazle said that, while minor damage did occur to one vehicle, there is no evidence to show that those responsible are connected to the crash scene. He explained there may have been several other emotionally-charged situations occurring at the hospital at one time.
While the hospital emergency room did go into a temporary lockdown “as a proactive measure to ensure everyone’s safety while EMS transported a patient,” a Sentara spokesperson directed questions on the specifics to EMS.
A Freedom of Information Act request recently filed with the city did not reveal any police reports dealing with damaged vehicles that night at the hospital.
“We are not animals,” said Jasmine Merton, 31, who lives at Atlantis Apartments.
Merton, who hadn’t met the Waltons before Wednesday, was at the scene on June 29 and concurs that the firefighter report is not accurate.
“It was horrible seeing stuff like that,” Merton said. “Then people online made it a color issue? We never saw it that way.”
Hutchinson said that the Walton family has since met with the firefighters that claimed to be involved with the incident. He praised their professionalism and said they “go through report writing” and know how to write reports such as the one in the daily briefing for June 29. Hutchinson said the report was not inaccurate.
“When the fire department, in particular, comes to the scene, we’re the guardians. We’re trying to make the worst day better for somebody. In a situation like this. It’s not possible,” Hutchinson said. “We’ve had many calls back in here to Atlantis Apartments since this tragic call with CJ, and we have had no problems whatsoever, and nobody in the fire department believes we will.”
