Man shot on Pine Avenue

Joshua Via, a 21-year-old Waynesboro man, was the victim of a gunshot wound to the chest in the usually quiet Tree Streets neighborhood, but police are not able to say yet how it occurred.
The shooting took place around 6:10 p.m. Monday in an apartment at 520 Pine Ave. However, three friends of the victim, attempting to take him to the hospital, got as far as an alley behind 439 S. Poplar Ave. before they flagged down police, according to Sgt. Brian Edwards of the Waynesboro Police Department.
The victim was taken by ambulance to Augusta Medical Center in Fishersville and then airlifted to the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville. Edwards did not know the victim’s condition or whether he would need emergency surgery.
Edwards said details about what took place “are very preliminary at this point.” He said the victim received a wound to the upper part of the chest, possibly piercing a lung. The shot came from a first-floor apartment, Edwards said, but added that police were unsure how the victim received the wound.
A 19-year-old male at the Pine Street residence was taken to AMC with chest pains, according to police.
Police recovered a 9 mm handgun at the residence, Edwards said. He added that the victim was able to make it out of the residence under his own power and left bloodstains on the sidewalk.
“He was able to get around,” Edwards said. “He was able to talk briefly.”
Investigators also attempted to talk to the victim at the hospital, Edwards said.
Edwards said police are unsure who owns the weapon. The victim, he said, had no fixed address, but had been staying at the apartment.
While neighbors say there have been a lot of people going in and out of the house in recent months, Edwards said he didn’t know of any recent calls to the residence. “Nothing of this caliber” had happened there, he said.
No one has been detained at this point, Edwards said.