A children's Halloween celebration at a Charlottesville park ended early on Saturday night after police officers assigned to the event heard gunfire nearby. The Charlottesville Police Department said its officers heard the shots at approximately 7:45 p.m. on Saturday, October 31, at Tonsler Park, while a community "Trunk or Treat" event was under way. No injuries and no property damage were reported, the department said in a formal release issued on Sunday, November 1.
Source: Charlottesville Police Department — City of Charlottesville news release, Nov. 1, 2026
Tonsler Park sits in the city's Fifeville area, and police posts on Saturday night placed the response at 500 Cherry Avenue, the park's address. Officers who were already at the park for the community event responded immediately, additional units were dispatched to the area, and officers cleared the park as a precaution while they searched for a suspect and for further evidence, according to the department.
Source: Charlottesville Police Department — City of Charlottesville news release, Nov. 1, 2026
One casing recovered near the community center
The clearest physical evidence police have reported so far is a single cartridge casing. "Officers recovered 1 cartridge casing near the Tonsler Park community center," the department said. As the search continued, officers cleared the park "to ensure the safety of event attendees and residents," and the department confirmed that no injuries or property damage were reported. Police have not described a suspect, have not announced an arrest, and have not said how many shots were fired beyond the single casing recovered.
Source: Charlottesville Police Department — City of Charlottesville news release, Nov. 1, 2026
The event families had come for was a trunk-or-treat — the now-common Halloween format in which children collect treats from decorated car trunks in a parking area rather than going door to door. Online advertising for the Tonsler Park event said it was scheduled to run from 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and to include live musical performances, according to Cville Right Now, the local news outlet that covered the response on Saturday night. The gunfire, at about 7:45 p.m., came roughly 45 minutes before the event was due to end.
Source: Cville Right Now — CPD responds to gunfire at Tonsler Park 'Trunk or Treat' event on Halloween
One of the event's organizers, Wes Bellamy, acknowledged what had happened in a social media post shortly after 9:30 p.m. on Saturday and said no one had been injured, Cville Right Now reported. The police department's own public updates followed a similar timeline: shortly after 8:00 p.m. it told the public to expect a large police presence in the area, and just after 9:15 p.m. it updated that post to say officers were no longer on the scene, while the incident remained under investigation.
Source: Cville Right Now — CPD responds to gunfire at Tonsler Park 'Trunk or Treat' event on Halloween
A year after gunfire at a Charlottesville Halloween party
Saturday's scare landed in a city that went through a worse Halloween a year earlier. In 2025, Charlottesville officers who heard gunfire responded to the 1100 block of River Road and found four people shot — including a gunman — after an altercation at a private Halloween party, according to Cville Right Now's reporting at the time. Arrests followed in that case in the days after: one man was arrested after being hit by gunfire himself and charged with malicious wounding offences, and a second Charlottesville man, then 20, was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. That history is part of why a shots-fired call at a children's community event, with officers already assigned to it, drew an immediate multi-unit response this year.
Source: Cville Right Now — CPD responds to gunfire at Tonsler Park 'Trunk or Treat' event on Halloween
For the families at Tonsler Park, the practical impact on Saturday was a celebration cut short: a park cleared as a precaution, children in Halloween costumes sent home early, and a police search in the surrounding streets. Police have not said the event itself was targeted, and nothing in the department's release connects the gunfire to the trunk-or-treat or to any attendee. What police have said, plainly, is that someone fired at least one shot close enough for officers at a community event to hear it — and that they do not yet know, publicly, who or why.
Source: Charlottesville Police Department — City of Charlottesville news release, Nov. 1, 2026
The Charlottesville Police Department says the investigation is ongoing and asks anyone with information about the Tonsler Park shots-fired incident to call Crime Stoppers at (434) 977-4000. Tips may be submitted anonymously.
What happens next
The next steps sit with Charlottesville detectives: establishing where the shot was fired from, whether anyone was being targeted, and whether the casing recovered near the community center can be tied to a weapon or to any other incident. As of the department's November 1 release, there was no suspect description, no arrest and no reported victim — a case that will move only if a witness, a camera or forensic work on that single casing gives investigators more than they released on Sunday. Awaaz Punjab will update this report if police name a suspect, announce an arrest or revise the account of Saturday night.
Source: Charlottesville Police Department — City of Charlottesville news release, Nov. 1, 2026