Bail bondsman slain in Richmond

A bail bondsman was shot to death while seeking a wanted person today in South Richmond, and the suspect in the shooting surrendered several hours later after a standoff at a nearby house.

Shortly after 6:30 a.m., police sealed off the 1800 block of Joplin Avenue, where they believed the suspect in the early morning shooting, James Albert Carr, was holed up in a house, possibly with hostages.

Police began negotiating with Carr via telephone, a process that continued until he walked out of the house and was taken into custody at 8:11 a.m.

Police said Carr’s girlfriend lives at the house and that he was holding four small children and three adults hostage.

Carr was charged with murder in the shooting death of bail bondsman James Woolfolk, 39.

After police had first learned Carr might have been in the house and may have had hostages, police sharpshooters were seen jumping over fences and racing toward the house on Joplin, which is near Oak Grove Elementary School. Extra Richmond officers and Virginia State Police troopers were called to help with crowd control.

Students were not scheduled to arrive at Oak Grove until about 8:30 for the scheduled 8:40 start of classes. Oak Grove employees who had already arrived by the time the standoff developed were gathered in an interior room.

At 8 a.m., police began intercepting children walking toward school and sending them home. Oak Grove employees and children riding on buses were diverted to the Arthur Ashe Center.

Richmond police said officers were called to the 2300 block of Joplin Avenue at 2:22 a.m. and found Woolfolk with a gunshot wound. He was declared dead at the scene.

Police said Woolfolk had gone to the house because it belonged to one of Carr’s relatives.

The area where the shooting occurred is just east of Jefferson Davis Highway and immediately west of the Hillside Court public-housing complex.

A large gathering of Richmond police officers and Virginia State Police troopers was on the scene by first light, about four hours after the initial call.

Police used several hundred feet of yellow crime-scene tape to cordon off the scene of the shooting, a brick and frame ranch house on a street lined by sidewalks and oak trees.

Authorities said Woolfolk was seeking someone on a felony charge of failure to appear in court.

Woolfolk became the city’s eighth homicide victim of 2008.

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