Flock Hit Leads to Man’s Arrest, Conviction After He Shot Into Ward’s Corner Grocery Store in 2025
NORFOLK, Va. — Thomas Duriel Brown Jr., 23, pleaded guilty in December to maliciously shooting at an occupied building after he fired into the windows of a grocery store last summer following an argument with a patron inside.
On Aug. 2, 2025, Mr. Brown went inside the Food Lion at the Southern Shopping Center on Tidewater Drive. At some point while he was inside the store, he had an argument with another patron. Mr. Brown then walked outside of the store, fired a gun three times at the front windows, got into the front passenger seat of a car, and was driven off. No one was injured, but Mr. Brown’s gunfire shattered multiple windows.
Norfolk Police officers arrived at the store and spoke with eyewitnesses who provided descriptions of Mr. Brown and the getaway car. Investigators used the Flock license plate recognition system to identify the car and flagged it for being involved in this crime. On Aug. 18, the car passed a Flock camera, the system alerted nearby officers who pulled over the car, and the driver identified Mr. Brown as the shooter from Aug. 2. The officers arrested Mr. Brown and recovered a firearm from his backpack, and Mr. Brown confessed to having used that firearm in the shooting. As he was being booked into jail, Mr. Brown — who had no prior criminal history — said that he had shot at the store because he was angry.
On Dec. 11, Mr. Brown entered an agreement to plead guilty to the felony of maliciously shooting into an occupied building, and in exchange the Commonwealth agreed not to file additional charges against Mr. Brown. There is no agreement on Mr. Brown’s sentence. Judge Joseph C. Lindsey accepted Mr. Brown’s plea agreement and set his sentencing hearing on Feb. 6, 2026.
“No grocery store argument is worth gunfire,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi. “Mr. Brown’s actions endangered any number of employees, shoppers, and passersby, and everyone, not least Mr. Brown, is lucky that nobody was hurt from his actions. Now Mr. Brown has been convicted of a felony and faces a prison sentence, all over nothing. My colleagues and I will continue to focus our efforts on incidents that pose a risk to public safety.”
Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Liane Galardi is prosecuting Mr. Brown’s case, and Norfolk Police Detective Andrew J. Jowdy led the investigation.
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