Shots Fired on Turpentine Run Road Leave One Dead

Shots fired on St. Thomas left five injured and one dead on Sunday, the V.I. Police Department reported.

At approximately 4:21 p.m. Central Dispatch was alerted by the Shot Spotter detection system that multiple gunshots were fired in the area of La Vega Watery Delivery and Heavy
Equipment on Turpentine Run Road, according to the police report.

Responding police units discovered that six individuals sustained gunshot wounds, the police report stated.

Emergency Medical Technicians made contact with one of the gunshot victims at the scene, an unresponsive Black male, and concluded that the man did not have any vital signs. This man sustained multiple gunshot wounds about the body and was later identified by his next of kin as 35-year-old Asymo Phipps, the report stated.

Phipps’ death marks the ninth homicide of 2024 on St. Thomas, bringing the territory’s total to 11 homicides so far this year, according to the Source Homicide List.*

Three of the gunshot victims were transported to the Schneider Regional Medical Center via ambulance, and a fourth victim, a minor male, was transported via private vehicle, according to the report.

The sixth male victim sustained injuries; however, he refused medical treatment, police said.

The Source Homicide List is a chronological log of the homicides recorded in 2024 in the U.S. Virgin Islands, as reported by the VIPD. Cases are broken down by island. While it is based on VIPD reports, the Source does not include suicides or vehicular homicides in its listing that the police and some other media do. This can lead to a discrepancy in the number of incidents reported.