Cops Recover Gun In Traffic Stop

OCEAN CITY - A Virginia man was arrested last week in Ocean City on weapons charges after fleeing resort police and getting caught with a loaded handgun following a routine traffic stop.

Shortly before 3 a.m. last Wednesday, an Ocean City police officer on patrol in the area of 100^th Street observed a vehicle with a rear license plate light not working and pulled it over on a routine traffic stop. According to police reports, the officer began getting suspicious about the vehicle when the driver had to open the driver's side door to interact with him. The driver told police he could not roll down the window because he had just had tint applied to the glass.

Nonetheless, the officer exchanged information with the driver and issued a warning for the defective light, but when he returned with the warning, he noticed the vehicle's three other occupants acting suspiciously.

The officer noted the passengers were slumped over and almost lying down. When the officer spoke again to the driver, he noticed the driver was extremely nervous with his hands shaking and pulse accelerating. The officer than asked the driver if anyone in the vehicle had any illegal guns or knives, to which the driver replied no. The officer then asked for and was granted permission to search the vehicle and asked all of the occupants to get out of the car.

As the officer, now assisted by other officers, began to pat down the driver and the other occupants, one of the suspects, later identified as Khiry Akeim Six, 18, of Virginia Beach, began to furtively move away. At that point, the officer found a shotgun shell on the car's floorboard. Six then took off and ran away from the scene toward the beach.

The officers chased Six to an area near a dead-end alley at the Fountainhead condominiums where the pursuit ended. The officers observed Six discard an object and soon after discovered a revolver-style pistol with its barrel buried in loose, wet sand. Six was taken into custody and agreed to talk to the officers about the gun, an old, rusty Forehand and Wadsworth model 5-shot revolver with four metal-jacketed rounds in the cylinder.

When questioned, Six said he got scared when confronted by police and ran to get rid of the handgun. He further told police it was tucked in his pants pocket during the traffic stop and he discarded it behind the trashcans when chased.