Man Charged With Murder After Broad Street Stabbing

A fatal, broad-daylight stabbing at an East Broad Street bus stop in downtown Richmond Thursday afternoon wasn't a random act of violence.

It was the result of a long-simmering feud between the 20-year-old victim and the man now charged with his murder, Richmond police say.

Both men wound up at VCU Medical Center after the 4 p.m fight in front of Foot Locker in the 300 block of E. Broad Street.

Javis Jarrell Turner, fatally stabbed, had run more than a block E. Marshall Street, where he collapsed and was spotted by a woman who was looking for a place to park by the city's convention center. He was rushed by ambulance to the hospital, lights and sirens, and died soon after arriving.

The man now charged with murder – 27-year-old Desean Q. Trent – ran eastbound on Broad Street after the attack and then walked to VCU Medical Center to treat wounds from the altercation, police said. He was arrested there without incident.

A young man who witnessed the fight, who identified himself as Joshua Beamer, said the two were fighting when one of them pulled a knife.

Javis Turner grew up in the Highland Park area and had recently graduated from Armstrong High School, said his father, Michael Brewton, who had been in the area and walked over to ask a reporter why there were so many police officers on Broad Street.

Then he found out it was his son. "They told me to go to the hospital," he said.

The stabbing blocked lanes of traffic on Broad Street as well as East Marshall Street for about two hours as investigators collected evidence and witness statements.

Court records show the suspect, who has no fixed address , has several convictions in the Richmond Court system for a variety of charges, including trespassing, carrying an concealed weapon, brandishing a firearm, possession of marijuana and assaulting a police officer. Those court records also indicate Desean Trent had not paid his fines.

The victim also had some scrapes with the law, but no convictions as an adult, court records show.

Brewton, a cook at Virginia Union University, said his son was taking a life-skills course to get him oriented after high school. On his last afternoon, Turner was with another relative who was serving as a mentor, Brewton said. He also said he had feared some tragedy could befall his son if he was left to roam the street.

It wasn't the first time violence had visited that section of E. Broad Street downtown.

A nearby broad daylight shooting on July 3, 1993, left one man dead – shot right through the heart – and another man critically wounded in the head as tens of thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses and participants in a taxidermists' convention gathered downtown. One of the victims had several thousand dollars in his pockets.

And, almost directly across the street from Thursday's stabbing, a young man was fatally shot in the face in April of 2003.

A few hours after Thursday's fatal stabbing, soon after Broad Street merchants lowered their steel grates, firefighters washed away the latest blood to spill in the heart of the city.