VIRGINIA BEACH — Rifles and handguns. A tactical vest with gun ammunition and magazines. A door with bullet holes through it. Shell casings.
Those were some of the items recovered during the search of an Ohio Avenue home hours after a 46-year-old man allegedly shot and injured a Virginia Beach police officer looking for evidence that someone living there was distributing child pornography.
The Virginia Beach Police Department special investigations officer — who was working with a team — was shot multiple times and hit in the shoulder. The shooting prompted a nearly six-hour barricade at the home on 1620 Ohio Ave. before Bryan Carl Cage gave himself up to police and was arrested, according to recently unsealed court documents filed in Virginia Beach Circuit Court.
The search came on June 13 — a year after police began monitoring child pornography that was allegedly being distributed via peer-to-peer sharing websites linked to a computer believed to be inside the Ohio Avenue house.
The child pornography investigation began on June 15, 2016 when historical data, which is stored by police in a child exploitation database in Florida, showed that an IP address linked to the Ohio Avenue home may have been involved in the possession and distribution of child pornography online, according to court documents.
Throughout the year, police downloaded images from the computer’s IP address that showed children that appeared to be between the ages of four and 14 engaged in sexual activities that involved adults, other children and a cat, court documents state.
When police conducted physical surveillance of the house, they realized that there was an apartment above the home’s garage that was labeled 1622 Ohio Ave. That is where police eventually entered and where the shooting occurred.
Police arrived at the home around 6:30 a.m. on June 13 to search for evidence that a person living there was distributing child pornography online, said Virginia Beach Police Chief James Cervera during a press conference hours after the shooting happened.
Officers announced themselves as police while knocking on the front and back doors of the two-story home. When no one answered their calls, police entered the back door of the home, which leads to an apartment above the garage, Cervera said.
At the time, several neighbors told Southside Daily that Cage had been living in the apartment and that the home is owned by his parents.
The police officers were wearing black vests with the word “police” on them. They continued to announce themselves as law enforcement as they climbed the stairs leading to the apartment. When they opened the door of the apartment, they were “immediately” met with gunfire, Cervera said.
The special investigations officer was shot during the gunfire, and four other officers fired back at Cage as they helped the injured officer down the stairs.
Two other officers received minor injuries in the hours-long barricade, which ended at noon when Cage surrendered. He was injured by a police dog during the surrender and was taken to an area hospital where he received treatment before being released.
When police searched the home, they also took a computer, laptop, iPads, a camera, cellphone, USB flash drives, paperwork, floppy disks, other electronics, “grow-op” equipment and marijuana, court documents state.
Cage was charged with attempted capital murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and malicious wounding. He has not been charged in connection to possible possession or distribution of child pornography, although police are still investigating it, VBPD spokeswoman Tonya Pierce said.
Cage is scheduled to appear in Virginia Beach Circuit Court for a preliminary hearing on Dec. 7.
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