Police seal off entrances at apartment complex after fatal shooting on Romney Street

Charleston police have sealed off entrances to a Romney Street apartment complex following a fatal shooting that took place there early this morning.

The three entrances to Bridgeview Village Apartments, 129 N. Romney St., are blocked and officers have limited entry to residents of the complex. Police are said to be conducting an operation of some sort within the complex today, and residents have been blocked from entering the area where that is taking place. Police would not say what type of operation is being conducted.

About 1:40 a.m., dispatchers received several reports about a shooting and officers were dispatched to the apartments. When officers arrived, they found a wounded man. He died at the scene, spokesman Charles Francis said.

He did not release further details.

Hidden out of sight, largely out of mind, the 300-unit complex sits on the edge of the Charleston Neck Area bracketed by cemeteries, industrial companies and a former landfill.

Charleston police have taken steps in the past to limit entry to Bridgeview after violence erupted.

In 2010, police barricaded two of the three entrances to the complex as crime-prevention measure following a summer homicide. The move drew complaints from residents but police said it also drove down crime.

Bridgeview - formerly called Bayside Manor - has a long history of criminal violence.

A man was shot dead there in 2009; in 2008 a group of men wearing ski masks sprayed an apartment with gunfire, wounding a 3-year-old girl and four men in their 20s.

And in 2009, a woman was sent to prison for an infamous 2006 incident in which a Bridgeview resident and her three toddler-age children were attacked with a bucket of corrosive lye mixture, causing chemical burns on a 4-year-old girl’s face.

More recently, a 26-year-old man was robbed and shot four times at the complex in May. A witness told police the man was shot after complained about the look of drugs he went there to buy. The man survived that shooting, police said.

Bridgeview residents formed a community association in 2010 to promote crime prevention and protest police barricades at the complex. Association officials could not immediately be reached for comment this morning.

Check back with postandcourier.com for details about this story as they become available.