PORTSMOUTH, Va. — The Portsmouth Police Department was investigating a homicide Sunday afternoon.
Emergency dispatchers received a call about the shooting around 1:30 p.m.
A department spokeswoman told 13News Now that someone shot a man at the intersection of Peach Street and Portsmouth Boulevard, near Brighton Elementary School.
Police identified the victim as 25-year-old Vien Nguyen from Portsmouth.
Neighbor Cybil Peterson said she didn’t hear any gunshots, but that she did hear her phone alert about the violent event.
"Pretty much I got a notification on my phone from my Ring Neighbors app. And the news app posted that someone got shot and killed at the convenience store down the road,” said Peterson.
Peterson said with increasing violence in the neighborhood, she depends on technology to keep her safe with new information.
"It comes through pretty fast, like maybe within 10 minutes. Every time something happens around here or there's a shooting, someone's posting and asking, 'Have you heard the shooting, was that gunshots?'" said Peterson.
Peterson said that having information at her fingertips helped make her next decision, so she would be safe.
"I pretty much just looked around the area and made sure it was not close and stayed inside of course,” said Peterson.
Police said Nguyen had a gunshot wound to his torso. Portsmouth police also held a RESET walk at noon on Monday.
If you know anything about this shooting, police ask that you call the Crime Line at 1-888-LOCK-U-UP.