Owner says he will prove Raleigh club safe after 2 shot, 1 stabbed in weekend incident
Raleigh police are investigating two weekend shooting incidents that left four people injured.
Around 2 a.m. Sunday Raleigh police responded to a shooting at Paris Lounge, on the 5500 block of Atlantic Springs Road, where a large gathering had taken place, police said.
Three people were injured, police said.
Eric Jenade Freeman, 47, was found in the parking lot with gunshot wounds and was taken to WakeMed in serious condition.
Marcus Noel Best, 31, had stab wounds and was taken to WakeMed with non-life-threatening injuries.
Officers were soon dispatched to Duke Raleigh Hospital where Brandon Lamar Butler, 36, had walked in with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds from the incident at Paris Lounge.
On Saturday officers responded to the 1500 block of Burgundy Street at 7:24 p.m. and found a man who was seriously injured. He was taken to WakeMed. Raleigh police didn’t release the man’s name.
Nuness Biongo, one of the owners of the Paris Lounge, said the early Sunday morning shooting followed a fight between two groups in the parking lot that turned into a bigger altercation as security tried to break it up.
“Then everybody got into an altercation, throwing punches at security,” he said.
One group ended up getting into a vehicle and pulling up closer to the club.
One man got out of the car and threw a barricade through one of the glass doors, Biongo said. Another man shot toward the club twice from the car.
“The music shut off inside, and everyone just panicked and took shelter,” Biongo said.
No one inside was hurt, he said.
Then the group in the vehicle drove off.
Just before the shooting, the club was shutting down from a first-time event there, billed as a celebrity birthday bash with promoter Tim Boss and rappers Rod Wave and Jeezy.
People had come from all over the country, and the club was packed, Biongo said.
Biongo said he doesn’t know who the people were, but hopes security footage will help police identify them.
At the club was a 15-member security team and two off-duty police officers, he said.
This was the first altercation since the club opened in March, Biongo said.
Now, he said, the shooting will cause him and the other owners to work to prove to their customers and the community that the club is safe.
“It’s going to be tough,” he said. “It is going to be a long road.”
Raleigh homicides up
The shootings mark a second weekend in a row in Raleigh in which multiple people were shot.
Three people were injured and two died in shooting incidents the previous weekend.
The rise in violence prompted a call for community cooperation from Raleigh Police Chief Cassandra Deck-Brown, The News & Observer reported.
“Very often people have seen something in advance of these incidents,” she said Dec 8. “What we’re doing right now is pleading to the community and asking for their help.”
Raleigh has had 29 homicides this year — a 70 percent increase over last year’s 17 and the most since 2008, when there were 35.
Ninety-eight people have been hurt in shootings in Raleigh as of Dec. 9, according to the police. There were 103 last year, 113 in 2017 and 88 in 2016, The News & Observer has reported.
Anyone with information about the shootings is asked to call Raleigh CrimeStoppers at 919-834-HELP or visit raleighcrimestoppers.org for text and email reporting options. CrimeStoppers pays cash rewards for anonymous tips that help solve cases.
This story was originally published December 15, 2019 at 11:29 AM with the headline "Owner says he will prove Raleigh club safe after 2 shot, 1 stabbed in weekend incident."
