Jan. 12, 2023 A man wanted in a Christmas Day murder was fatally shot when he opened fire at a U.S. Marshals task force in Hampton, striking a Chesapeake sheriff’s deputy multiple times.
By Peter Dujardin and Gavin Stone Source Daily Press Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
A sheriff’s deputy was seriously wounded and a man wanted in a Dec. 25 homicide was killed Wednesday in a late morning shootout.
A U.S. Marshals Service Task Force — consisting of law enforcement officers from federal, state and local agencies — was following a car with the suspect, intending to arrest him in the Christmas Day killing of his wife.
But the car stopped at the intersection of Big Bethel Road and Todds Lane at 11:20 a.m., Hampton Police Chief Mark Talbot said at an early afternoon news conference.
“The suspect almost immediately exited the vehicle and began firing at the task force officers,” Talbot said. “The task force officers returned fire.”
The suspect and one of the officers — a Chesapeake sheriff’s deputy — each were “struck multiple times,” Talbot said.
The suspect was pronounced dead at a local hospital, the chief said.
“The task force officer is in surgery as we speak,” Talbot said, adding that he’s in critical condition.
A spokeswoman for the Chesapeake Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday afternoon the deputy, Scott Chambers, got out of surgery about 3:30 p.m. at Riverside Regional Medical Center, though his condition was still listed as critical.
Talbot declined to identify the suspect or identify the homicide for which he was wanted, explaining that his relatives hadn’t yet been notified.
But two law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case said the man killed was a suspect in a Dec. 25 homicide on Hampton’s Twin Lakes Circle. Police sought 46-year-old Lamont Lee Lewis on second-degree murder and related charges in the slaying of his wife inside a home.
Tivona Fogg, 45, married Lewis on Oct. 15, 2021, and the couple was living together in the apartment at the time of Tivona’s death, according to her daughter, Imani Cobb.
Reached Wednesday, Cobb learned of the shootout from the Daily Press.
She said the family called the police on Dec. 25 after they couldn’t reach her mother. “We were calling her, and she wasn’t answering,” Cobb said. “It was Christmas Day and she’s usually up early, so we figured something was wrong.”
Officers went to the home, in the Coliseum area, and found Fogg inside. A warrant was issued a few days later for Lewis’ arrest.
Chesapeake Sheriff Jim O’Sullivan identified Chambers as the deputy who had been wounded, saying he’d been shot twice — once in the upper body and once in the lower body. Chambers has been a Chesapeake deputy for about four years and has been on the task force for about a year, he said.
“I’m proud of my deputy,” O’Sullivan said. “We’re hoping everything’s going to pull through. He’s an amazing individual — and just for the public, to keep him in your prayers and thoughts, and we’ll keep being vigilant and doing our job.”
Talbot declined to reveal where the officers began tailing the car, saying they had been following it for “several minutes” before the shooting.
The crime scene Wednesday afternoon appeared centered on a small silver Buick, with the driver’s side back door open, stopped in the westbound lanes of Big Bethel Road. It was surrounded by what appeared to be five large law enforcement SUVs, two with their doors open.
Talbot declined to say how many task force officers opened fire on the suspect, but said it was more than one. Another person in the suspect’s car was uninjured and “is speaking to our detectives,” Talbot said.
The local U.S. Marshals Task Force consists of officers from various federal agencies, such as the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Drug Enforcement Administration. It also includes state and local officers that various local police departments and sheriff’s offices contribute to the operation as “task force officers.”
Talbot said the group Wednesday included officers from the Marshals Service, the Virginia State Police, the Chesapeake Sheriff’s Office, and the Norfolk and Newport News police departments.
The group works together as they go out in search of fugitives, all under the direction of the Marshals Service. “It’s essential to the Hampton Roads area in putting the worst people in jail,” O’Sullivan said.
The investigation into the shooting will be led by the Hampton Police Division.