‘It could be your child.’ In Charlotte, shootings - some murders - start with petty fights

In Charlotte, people are being shot — and sometimes killed — over disputes as minor as road rage, arguments over belts and disagreements about fast food.

And the most recent case of a shooting in uptown, where a CEO walking to a business meeting was critically wounded from a stray bullet, appears to have started over a similarly small fight among teenagers, police say.

The uptown shooting has particularly stunned the community — not only because Dispose Rx CEO John Holaday was a high-profile businessman who had been to the White House and had testified in front of Congress — but also because the shooting happened in the middle of the day Monday, in the densely populated center city district. Holaday died Friday at Carolinas Medical Center.

And the shot was fired even as dozens of fire fighters, law enforcement officers and paramedics were on scene for a building fire barely 500 feet away.

While the violence — especially at the hands of young people — may be a shock to some, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department has been sounding the alarm all year, says Chief Kerr Putney and other top CMPD officials.

They say violent crime has increased, particularly among teens, which includes many of those charged this year in the city’s 82 homicides and other cases of gun crime.

The teen accused of shooting Holaday, for instance, is 16 years old.

“Unfortunately, as the numbers continue to climb, we seem to be the only ones sounding that alarm,” said CMPD Maj. Dave Robinson.

“And talking about how people work out their differences in a way that’s consistent with our values in this community and that don’t resort to violence and most importantly, bloodshed.”

Uptown safe, but not immune

CMPD has a multi-prong approach to ensure public safety in uptown and other areas of Charlotte, Putney and Robinson told the Observer in a lengthy interview Wednesday. That effort includes patrols, homicide detectives, victim advocates and proactive work in the city, often alongside crisis experts, nonprofit partners and inside Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to teach children and teens conflict resolution skills.

In light of Monday’s uptown shooting, police emphasize that the center city area, CMPD’s Central Division, is well protected.

Both Robinson and Putney point to data showing arrests in the Central Division are up this year and police presence is high, both in on-duty officers on foot and in patrol cars as well as off-duty officers working overtime shifts at events and as added security for uptown businesses.

“Center city remains one of the safest areas in the city, consistently, in spite of the huge growth,” Putney said. “We swell to well over 100,000 people in center city at any given time.”

Uptown Charlotte, though, is not immune to two distinct crime trends CMPD is finding citywide.

‘Crumble to your own demise’

The first trend: escalating life-threatening violence, usually committed with a gun, preceded by relatively minor disputes.

And the other: repeat arrests of people who have, time and time again, avoided significant jail time for prior violent offenses.

“You can articulate this anyway you want,” Robinson said. “... Too often, people are reaching for weapons to settle minor disputes.

“And that’s why we’ve been so specific and out front on things like conflict resolution, things like de-escalation, things like mediation.”

George Dortche, a community organizer and volunteer who works with youth, said such efforts are badly needed to seriously combat gun violence in Charlotte.

“At the heart of it is a need to figure out their purpose in life,” Dortche said of youth in Charlotte.

“If you don’t have a purpose, then you crumble to your own demise.

“I’ve never seen anyone who knows their purpose rob a bank or shoot someone,” Dortche said. “It’s a school effort, a home effort, a judicial effort.”

Road rage, fast food shootings

In recent months, CMPD officials have repeatedly outlined how relatively minor disputes have turned into gun violence and murders in Charlotte.

Sometimes it’s a “quick hot temper,” Putney said. Other times, young adults and teens are pulling the trigger after weeks of back-and-forth arguing both online and in person.

As in years past, many of the homicides in Charlotte are related to domestic violence, Robinson said. But detectives have found one case this year likely started as a fight over fast food. Several other killings, Robinson said, appear to be related to insults and “beefs” on social media.

Just this week, police arrested two men, both 18 years old, for shooting into a home in the Steele Creek area. That case revolved around an ongoing feud over an expensive designer belt, investigators say. And even as CMPD officers were on scene to investigate the shooting, one of the accused men began firing at police officers, who took cover beside their patrol car and narrowly avoided being shot themselves.

In March this year, it was a case of morning-commute road rage on Independence Boulevard that led to a woman being shot at while inside her car. The woman had accidentally weaved into another driver’s path on the road, CMPD said. There was no collision but police say the enraged driver retaliated by shooting at the woman’s car. CMPD arrested a 20-year-old man in that case and the woman escaped unharmed.

In August, multiple cases of escalating violence occurred. First, it was a dispute between neighbors that saw a 19-year-old man shot in the leg near his house off Wilkinson Boulevard. Then, in University City, four people were hit by bullets, including two UNC Charlotte students who were injured and 19-year-old Christian Estes, a father, who was killed amid the argument at an apartment party.

Police have yet to arrest anyone in Estes’ death. On Thursday, CMPD held a news conference where officials pleaded with potential witnesses at the party to come forward with information.

“They didn’t do anything to deserve what happened,” CMPD Lt. Bryan Crum said.

And Estes’ mother spoke of the pain of her son being senselessly gunned down, taking away a father from his daughter and her son’s dream of owning a business.

“This is a tragedy. Not just because this is my child,” Latonya Woodward said.

“But it could be your child, it could be your cousin, nephew, grandson, it could be anybody.”

Repeat offenders arrested again

Most gun crime and homicide victims in Charlotte this year have had some relation or history with the person who shot them, CMPD officials say and data shows. But several cases of innocent bystanders being hurt, killed or narrowly miss being hit have captured this city’s attention this year.

For example, in April, 27-year-old Kendal Crank, a nursing student and a mother to two young children, was killed in the crossfire on North Tryon Street as several people fired rounds at one another near a busy intersection. Crank was hit while sitting in her car at a red light. Two men, ages 22 and 24, and a 17-year-old have been charged with murder.

“To end a life like that, a woman with a family, with so much promise ... There is not one police officer who wears that badge who doesn’t take that personally,” CMPD’s Maj. Robinson said.

Just last week, a delivery driver in west Charlotte narrowly avoided injury when a 29-year-old man shot into her car, then fled. He was later arrested.

Then there’s Holaday, who Robinson said, effectively “gets off a plane and comes into our city” and is shot while walking down the street.

“We take that personally,” he said. “We’re offended by that.”

While shootings in Charlotte rarely injure people not involved in the dispute, the rising violence in the city this year has impacted multiple families, like Crank’s, whose loved ones were totally innocent bystanders.

In many of these cases, those arrested have lengthy criminal histories, but Putney says too often his officers find themselves charging suspects who ultimately never see jail time. Or, in other cases, are permitted by the courts and prosecutors to plead guilty to lesser sentences. Putney this week, as he has throughout the year as Charlotte’s homicide total climbs, called for more accountability for judges and prosecutors.

In a recent investigation, The Charlotte Observer found that prosecutors in Mecklenburg County are dismissing more than two thirds of gun charges. Reporters examined criminal records of the nearly 300 people charged with murder in the county, finding that more than half of them had prior weapons charges. Of those, the Observer’s investigation found that 30 would have been in prison at the time of the murder had they been convicted in court rather than seen their prior gun charge dismissed.

“We have to be serious about repeat violent offenders in this jurisdiction,” Putney said.

“The system is failing our public in the area of accountability.”

This story was originally published October 4, 2019 at 8:09 AM with the headline "‘It could be your child.’ In Charlotte, shootings - some murders - start with petty fights."