Jury Convicts Man of Voluntary Manslaughter in Retrial of Fatal MacArthur Mall Shooting That Injured 2 Others
NORFOLK, Va. — A jury found Gary Latrail Moore, 42, guilty on Wednesday of voluntary manslaughter after Mr. Moore shot and killed 33-year-old Roosevelt McKinney inside the MacArthur Center mall in 2022. A separate jury convicted Mr. Moore last year of unlawfully wounding two other victims in the same shooting but was unable to reach a verdict on the charge of voluntary manslaughter.
On April 2, 2022, Mr. Moore and his friend were shopping at a store in Ghent when they encountered two individuals — one of them the nephew of Mr. McKinney — who had an issue with Mr. Moore’s friend. After the two parties exchanged words, Mr. Moore and his friend left that store and later resumed their shopping inside MacArthur Center. In a clothing store on the second floor of the mall, Mr. Moore and his friend encountered the same two individuals from earlier. The four men exchanged heated words again, and Mr. Moore and his friend left that store soon after.
Mr. Moore and his friend then went to a hat store on the first floor of the mall. Mr. McKinney — who was not present at the previous two confrontations — and Mr. McKinney’s nephew followed them into the hat store, and those four men began to fist fight. After the fight ended, Mr. McKinney and his nephew turned their backs to leave the hat store, Mr. Moore pulled a gun from his bag, Mr. McKinney and his nephew started running, and Mr. Moore began shooting at them. Mr. Moore shot Mr. McKinney three times, once in his leg and twice fatally in his torso, and he shot two innocent bystanders in their legs. Mr. McKinney ran out of the mall and across the street before collapsing and dying from his wounds.
Based on their investigation, police charged Mr. Moore with second-degree murder, using a firearm in the commission of murder, two counts of malicious wounding, and two counts of using a firearm in the commission of malicious wounding. Mr. Moore pleaded not guilty to his charges and opted for a jury trial, which took place in August 2024.
Mr. Moore testified at that trial, saying he believed Mr. McKinney to have been armed but admitting that he never saw Mr. McKinney with a gun. The police had recovered a gun from underneath a truck near where Mr. McKinney collapsed, but they could not confirm to whom the gun belonged. In that trial, after the Commonwealth presented the evidence against Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore’s defense counsel moved the Court to strike the charges, arguing that Mr. Moore was acting in self-defense and without malice. Judge Jamilah D. LeCruise, who presided over the trial, ruled that Mr. Moore had acted without malice, reduced the charges to voluntary manslaughter and two counts of unlawful wounding, and dismissed the three related firearm charges which required malice to go forward. After about five hours of deliberation, the jury found Mr. Moore guilty of the two counts of unlawful wounding but was not able to reach a unanimous verdict on the voluntary manslaughter charge. Judge LeCruise declared a mistrial on that charge, and it was set for a retrial before a different jury beginning on April 16.
After hearing the evidence on Tuesday and deliberating on Wednesday, that jury found Mr. Moore guilty of voluntary manslaughter. Mr. Moore’s sentencing hearing for all three charges is set for July 18. Mr. Moore is also facing a violation of probation from a prior offense, and a hearing on that matter is set for May 29.
“I went to the scene of this homicide in 2022, as I do for nearly all homicides in Norfolk, and I remember the fear of the people who were there,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi. “Mr. Moore did not have the legal right to shoot at anyone, let alone someone running away, and everyone has the right to be in public without the danger of catching a stray bullet. We believed the evidence to support a murder conviction and tried the case as such, though we respect the judge’s rulings otherwise. We persisted through two jury trials, ultimately securing convictions against Mr. Moore for killing Mr. McKinney and wounding two others. State jury trials in Virginia are nearly always cases that could go either way, and I am proud of the work my prosecutors did to hold Mr. Moore accountable. My condolences go to Mr. McKinney’s family and to the two surviving victims of Mr. Moore’s crimes.”
Senior Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorneys Emily A. Woodley and Andrew Kolp are prosecuting Mr. Moore’s case, and Norfolk Police Detective Kyle D. Austin led the investigation.
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