Murder, drugs, theft, fear and frustration on Balls Ford Road

Business owners in the Balls Ford Road corridor are becoming increasingly frustrated.

Vagrants, drugs, shootings, and a recent homicide have ignited fears in the community, whose members are pushing the Prince William County Police for more help.

On Tuesday, September 20, about 15 retail shop and restaurant managers met with Prince William County Police officers at a Hampton Inn on Sudley Road near Manassas for a neighborhood watch meeting.

The homeless living in the nearby woods often treats themselves to a complimentary breakfast for hotel guests. In the past, hotel manager Jennifer Decker says she politely asked the vagrants to leave, but they didn’t. Today, she calls the cops.

“It’s like, they know exactly how much time they have to stay and eat and then leave before you show up,” said Decker.

Earlier this month, someone in the hotel’s parking lot began firing a gun and left a bullet hole in a customer’s car. At an Arby’s restaurant nearby, the manager complains of midday drug deals in her parking lot and people who use her dining room to use the purchased drugs. At McDonald’s and Checkers, thieves are stealing items from parked cars.

The business owners asked police how to maintain trees to prevent homeless campers from pitching tents and living in the brush and where to place security cameras and no-trespassing signs on their properties.

One frustrated manager told police she considered using a baseball bat to chase vagrants out of her establishment.

Drugs like fentanyl and Perc30, which killed two teenagers during 24 hours in Prince William County earlier this year, are a problem on Balls Ford Road.

Drugs also played a role in the shooting death of a 25-year-old man shot and killed last month, two blocks from the hotel. Since then, police learned panhandlers, common on street medians throughout the county, are spending the day’s earnings on drugs sold to them by dealers who provide curbside service.

After 15 years in business, City Grille on Balls Ford Road closed its doors on August 31. On June 28, police said a 43-year-old man thought he heard a woman in distress and went to help.

The Good Samaritan interrupted a drug deal, and the dealer beat him unconscious, putting him in a hospital. Police found the 41-year-old dealer inside a nearby business and arrested him.

“I could not believe what I saw. I knew something had to be done,” said Prince William Police Captain Jacques Poirier, commander of western district operations. “I have that man’s picture in my office as a reminder — never again in our community.”

In recent weeks, Poirier has poured additional temporary resources into the Balls Ford Road corridor to address the crime, like adding bike cops, special patrols, and staging marked police car in parking lots to deter criminals.

Undercover cops working with a Northern Virginia regional task force arrested several gang members. Police installed a security camera at Balls Ford and Sudley roads but removed it due to technical issues. “We hope to have it back up and working soon,” said Poirier.

The pleas for help come as police lack bodies. Recruiters now work to fill the next class of cadets, starting in January, to replace 100 officers who have retired or left the profession since the riots of May 2020 that consumed not only the county but the country.

“We’re stretched thin as it is. We don’t have enough folks to have a full bike team right now,” Poirier told the business owners.

Ninety-six percent of county residents surveyed are happy with the services provided by Prince William police. Police Chief Peter Newsham told Potomac Local News he’s proud of the star rating, that his officers work to earn it daily, and that he values community support.

Following a national call to defund the police in 2020, local politicians launched an effort to investigate the Prince William police department’s hiring practices. Some were dissatisfied with its response to riots near Manassas on May 30, 2020, where police used tear gas to keep rioters at bay, and multiple cops were injured.

Last year, the husband of County Supervisor Andera Bailey lobbed an unfounded accusation, claiming an officer called him the “N” word during an event in 2017 where he was the keynote speaker. Investigators talked to more than 100 officers, including the department’s top brass, during the probe, which consumed the county’s Racial and Social Justice Commission, founded in 2021.

All have taken their toll on morale.

“Is morale the highest I’ve ever seen it? No. Is it the lowest? You’d have to ask the officers,” said Poirier.

While morale dips, the number of calls has only increased as the county’s population rises — now at 482,000 people, up 124% since 1990. UVA’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service estimates more than 640,000 people will call Prince William County home by 2040.

With an authorized complement of 707 sworn officers and no new ones, despite county leaders passing its largest local government budget in history, nearly $4 billion, the department shifted from proactively patrolling to reactively responding to calls.

Calls are getting more complicated, and the amount of paperwork for officers has also increased, including recent requirements to track racial information during traffic stops and use of force data. Prince William officers are also working mandatory overtime to keep the streets safe.

“As a young officer, I used to be able to handle a good call, where the caller is satisfied, do my paperwork, and be done in 20 minutes. That’s not the case anymore,” said Poirier.

Now in his second year, Chief Newsham calls for pay raises for current officers and a higher starting pay for cadets. Since 2019, the annual income for new officers has been $52,749. However, recent efforts to collectively bargain with the county government for salary increases are underway.

Brentsville District Supervisor Jeanine Lawson stopped by the meeting to inject a dose of politics. She accused Prince William Commonwealth Attorney Amy Ashworth (D) of being soft on crime and attempting not to prosecute low-level offenses, a move that she ultimately dropped after it received harsh criticism from the legal eagles of the county Bar Association and law enforcement.

This week, Ashworth failed to win a 1st-degree murder conviction on one of two men who walked into a Manassas-area Denny’s restaurant and shot and killed a delivery driver the day after Christmas 2019. In a separate case last month, a judge awarded bond to a murder suspect for the first time.

“Right now, crime is paying,” said Lawson, a Republican. “Be very mindful of who you vote for on your November ballot. Be sure to vote for people who want to put criminals where they belong.”

At least one Democrat is using that message, too. “We got soft on crime over the last administration,” under Gov. Ralph Northam, Roanoke, Virginia Mayor Sherman Lea (D) told The Roanoke Rambler. “We’ve got to get more punitive.”

While things are tough now, Poirier is hopeful for better days. He’s now past retirement age but isn’t going anywhere — a sentiment shared by many others on the force who’ve served 25 years or more.

He encouraged the business owners to remain engaged with the police, to keep coming to meetings, and share their concerns.

“With your next phone call, you can prevent the next victim from laying out on Sudley Road. Because that’s not what Prince William County is,” said Poirier.