Woman smashed window and fired gun before Newport News police officer shot her – The Virginian-Pilot

NEWPORT NEWS — A woman who was shot by a police officer early Saturday morning caused a loud commotion at an apartment complex in southeast Newport News before officers arrived on the scene, the city’s police chief said Monday.

Several residents called 911 around 2:20 a.m. to say the woman – identified as 38-year-old Monae Bonapart – fired her gun, terrifying residents of the Stuart Gardens complex on 16th Street, Police Chief Steve Drew said at a news conference.

When officers arrived, they heard another gunshot before confronting Bonapart in a small courtyard.

“You can hear police officers giving her orders: ‘Put the gun down, nobody wants to hurt you, calm down,'” Drew said of the recordings. “She says some things that are very disturbing. She threatens what will happen if police officers approach her. And then she threatens to hurt herself.”

Several officers with riot shields positioned themselves in front of Bonaparte as she took cover near some bushes outside a residence. Drew said she put the weapon down and picked it up again.

According to Drew, another officer managed to “break away from that line” and thus establish a more direct line of sight to Bonapart.

“According to the officer, she pointed the gun at him and then he fired,” Drew said.

The police chief would not say how many times the officer fired. He also said there was a “great distance” between the officer and Bonaparte, which made the shooting unclear on the officer’s body camera footage.

“Every time you increase the distance, the images are not as sharp as they could be,” Drew said. “The farther away you are, the more distorted the images become.”

He said he did not know exactly how far the officer was from Bonaparte when he fired.

In addition, footage from the body cameras of other police officers present at the scene – whose cameras were at chest level – was partially obscured by the riot shields worn by those officers, he said.

The body camera footage is still being closely examined, and investigators are trying to enhance some of the footage, he said. The final decision on whether the unidentified officer’s actions were justified will be made by Newport News District Attorney Howard Gwynn, he said.

Drew described the events that led to the shooting on Saturday morning.

Drew said Bonaparte called a male friend in the early hours of the morning and asked for a ride from Portsmouth to “either Hampton or Newport News.” The man agreed, and they picked up another woman along the way.

But an argument broke out during the journey between Bonaparte, who was sitting in the back seat, and the woman in the passenger seat.

“Ms. Bonaparte displays a firearm, begins to talk rapidly and becomes very agitated,” Drew said, referring to the statements of the other two. “At one point, she takes the weapon and orders the passenger to get out of the vehicle at gunpoint.”

The man dropped the woman off in Hampton, and Bonapart gave him directions. “The driver is then given instructions at gunpoint about where to go and where to turn — left here and right here,” Drew said.

During the drive, Drew said, Bonaparte struck the driver twice in the side of the face with her gun.

Then, he said, “she became increasingly agitated and grabbed the steering wheel,” causing the vehicle to crash into several parked vehicles on 16th Street.

“We were able to pick up parts of it not only from the Ring camera footage (from homes), but also from some of the department cameras we have in the area,” Drew said.

He said the driver dropped Bonaparte off after the accidents and called 911 on the way back to Hampton.

Then Newport News 911 received several calls from Stuart Gardens residents reporting a woman with a gun – some callers said she had fired the gun, others said windows had been broken.

“They were scared and said, ‘Please, please send officers immediately,'” Drew said.

When arriving officers reached the complex, they heard another gunshot, he said. They soon confronted Bonaparte in a courtyard, with officers backing away for her safety. “They’re trying to have a conversation with Ms. Bonaparte for about 10 to 12 minutes,” Drew said. “They’re trying to de-escalate the situation” and get her to put the gun down.

Bonaparte also made a 911 call – and was connected to her mother – while at the same time officers on the scene could be heard trying to get her to put down the weapon.

“She speaks at an accelerated pace,” Drew said of that call. “She seems short of breath. She seems very, very agitated at times. It’s hard to understand what she’s saying.”

Drew declined to comment on Bonaparte’s mental health. When asked if his officers did enough to de-escalate the situation, he seemed supportive of the decisions made by his officers on the scene.

“I wish there was a magic word or a phrase like, ‘I’m just going to put this gun down and we’ll talk,'” Drew said. “I think the officers did their best.”

“When you’re dealing with a person who has already fired shots, you have to remember that the officers didn’t know what was coming,” he said. “And I would hope that Ms. Bonaparte would have put the weapon down … and surrendered to the officers. But that didn’t happen.”

“I don’t know what was going on in her heart or her head,” Drew said. “I don’t know what she was going through. I just wish we hadn’t used a firearm in that situation.”

He said the gun was stolen from a home in Portsmouth in 2023.

A Stuart Gardens resident told the Daily Press she was sleeping in her bed when she heard the glass in her kitchen window shatter, followed by the screaming of a woman outside.

“She was standing at my door,” said the woman, who did not want to give her name. “She was walking around banging on doors. She was trying to get people to open the door.”

Bonaparte was shot just a few meters from her front door.

The Stuart Gardens resident said her window was shattered by gunfire, while Drew believes the windows were shattered because Bonaparte hit the windows “with the butt of her gun.”

“I believe at last count four windows were broken in three apartments, but I have no reports of bullets going through a window,” he said.

Danny Bartlett, 60, a Newport News Shipbuilding employee who lives on 16th Street, said two of his vehicles were hit in front of the house, including the transmission of his Chevrolet Silverado pickup. Another man, Kevin Holland, 53, said the speeding SUV collided with his neighbor’s car, causing that car’s wheels to hit the curb, and the rear of his car was also hit.

Drew said he spoke with Bonaparte’s mother on Saturday morning. “I didn’t call her to talk about the specifics of the case,” he said. “I called her to let her know that I know she just lost her daughter. And regardless of what happened, I wanted her to know that I was just calling to talk to her … and that I wanted to check on her and her family.”

“I wish it were different,” he said. “I want us to remember that there is still a grieving family. … Regardless of the circumstances, someone lost their life. That’s why I asked for respect for that family as well.”

This is the second time in 2024 that police have shot and killed a person in Newport News.

Peter Dujardin, 757-897-2062, [email protected]