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Updated March 28, 2023 at 9:45 a.m.
The estate of Deshayla Harris, who was killed in an Oceanfront shooting in 2021, is suing Virginia Beach claiming it’s possible a city police officer killed her.
“While the shooter remains unknown currently after nearly two years, some evidence reasonably points to the shooter potentially being a VBPD Officer,” the lawsuit filed late last week says. It asks for $50 million.
The lawsuit is filed by Harris’s estate, which is managed by her mother, Elisheba Harris.
In a public statement, city spokesperson Tiffany Russell wrote the city is still working “tirelessly” to find who killed Harris.
“There is no evidence that a Virginia Beach Police officer or a Virginia Beach Officer’s service weapon was involved in the death of DeShayla Harris,” the statement reads.
If it wasn’t an officer, attorney and former Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax wrote, the Virginia Beach police department is still responsible for Harris’s death because the department caused the “chaotic” conditions that led to her death.
Fairfax is handling the suit for the Harris family.
“This family has been crying out for justice for two years, and those cries have fallen on deaf ears of the Virginia Beach Police Department and the city of Virginia Beach,” he said. “And it is our job, and our goal and our mission to ensure that those cries are finally heard, and there is finally accountability, truth and justice.”
The night of March 26, 2021 a large fight broke out at 20th Street at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront. At least eight people were injured and 25-year-old Donovon Lynch was fatally shot by a Beach police officer.
Officers also responded to gunfire around 19th Street, where they found Harris. She died at the scene and police Chief Paul Neudigate said at the time they believed she was a bystander.
Chesapeake resident Ahmon Jahree Adams, 22, Virginia Beach residents Nyquez Tyyon Baker, 18, and 20-year-old Devon Maurice Dorsey, Jr. were all arrested and charged in connection with the first shooting of the night.
There were several shootings the night of March 26, 2021 when Deshayla Harris and Donovon Lynch were both fatally shot. In the chaotic night, there was also an accident involving a responding officer who was released from the hospital the next day. Attorneys for Harris's family say the chaos should have been better controlled..
According to the lawsuit, Virginia Beach police weren’t staffed or ready to police the popular Oceanfront the night of March 26. COVID-19 restrictions had recently lifted, Fairfax wrote, and the crowds were “much larger than usual.”
Harris and a group of friends noticed things were getting rowdy and walked along the Boardwalk before seeing police cars rush by, when they decided to leave. They walked back to Harris’s friend’s car in a municipal lot at 19th and Pacific streets where they saw a heavy police presence.
“At no time did officers give safety commands to Deshayla and her friends, establish a safety zone for innocent bystanders or direct Deshayla and her friends to safety,” the lawsuit says.
The girls were walking back to the car when shooting started and ducked behind bushes for safety.
The gunfire abruptly stopped and, according to the lawsuit, Harris’s friend asked her, “‘You good, Shay? Shay, you good, baby?’”
Harris had been shot in the back of the head and died at the scene.
Since then, Harris’s family has asked the city to see the ballistics report related to her death, their lawsuit states. It hasn’t been released to them and neither has body camera footage related to the response of Harris’s shooting.
The same night and not far from where Harris was killed, 25-year-old Donovon Lynch was shot and killed by a Virginia Beach police officer.
The officer who shot Lynch didn’t have his body camera on when it happened and didn’t face charges for the fatal shooting.
Lynch’s family, which counts musician Pharrell Williams in their extended family tree, recently filed a wrongful death lawsuit with Virginia Beach for $3 million.
Lynch’s death had a ripple effect in the city: Williams, his cousin, took the second Something in the Water Festival to Washington D.C because of dissatisfaction with Virginia Beach’s response to Lynch’s killing.
"I wish the same energy I've felt from Virginia Beach leadership upon losing the festival would have been similarly channeled following the loss of my relative's life," Williams wrote in a 2021 letter to city manager Patrick Duhaney.
"I love my city but for far too long it has been run by - and with toxic energy."
WHRO's Laura Philion contributed to this report
