Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
2 Dead, 7 Wounded in Shooting at North Carolina Block Party
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 5 years ago on
June 22, 2020

Share

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Two people were killed and seven others were wounded early Monday when multiple people fired into a crowd at an impromptu celebration in North Carolina, police said. Five others were hit by vehicles.
The shooting happened at an impromptu block party in Charlotte that was a continuation of Juneteenth celebrations, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Deputy Chief Gerald Smith said at a media briefing Monday.
About 400 people gathered on the north side of the city when someone in the crowd was struck during a hit-and-run accident, Smith said. Police responding to the scene heard shots being fired. Police believe more than one person fired weapons because videos recorded sounds from guns of different calibers. Authorities recovered around 100 casings from the scene.
Maliyah Cook, a witness and relative of one of the victims, said the mood of the crowd leading up to the shooting had been calm. Suddenly, she heard gunshots.
“I really feel like it was a good party. I don’t know what happened,” Cook told The Associated Press. “It came out the blue.”
As Cook was running, she said she looked down to see her cousin, 29-year-old Kelly Miller, fatally wounded in the middle of the street. Police have said Miller was pronounced dead at the scene while 28-year-old Christopher Antonio Gleaton was pronounced dead after being transported to the hospital.
Matthew Torres, a Charlotte radio personality who goes by the name Chewy, said that with fewer police and organized activities than previous nights, the atmosphere was tense preceding the fatal shootings. Police say gatherings Friday and Saturday in the area ended without injuries and that the crowds dispersed in a mostly peaceful fashion.

Smith Said No Motive Was Clear for the Shooting

But on Sunday, Torres said some in the crowd seemed angry and that he “had a hunch something was going to go on.”
“You could see they were angry for whatever reason, not knowing what they were angry for,” Torres said in a phone interview.
Late Sunday night, cars were doing tricks in the street including one that performed a donut and blew a tire, he said. Soon after, an ambulance arrived and then gunshots rang out. He said it sounded like multiple people in the crowd were firing at once.
“You had one gun sound and then maybe like a half a second later you heard two and then half a second later after that, that’s when anybody and everybody who had a gun was letting it go,” Torres said, adding: ““We were looking at bodies in the street.”
Smith said no motive was clear for the shooting.
Near the scene hours later, Myra Stewart said she was saddened by the shooting.
“We’ve been protesting, and we’ve been saying that Black lives matter. But not only do they have to matter to white people, they have to matter to us, too,” said Stewart, an African American resident of Charlotte.
Betty Oates, another Charlotte resident, noted the deaths heighten the sense of crisis during the coronavirus pandemic and a nationwide movement by protesters to highlight racial injustice in the wake of deaths of Black men in police custody.

No One Was in Custody by Midafternoon

“We are already in a crisis,” she said. “God, here we are in another crisis on top of another crisis.”
Smith said the situation grew so chaotic after the arrival of authorities early Monday that a rescue team had to be sent into the crowd to pull people “off the backs of our firefighters” who were treating people hurt at the scene.
Smith also acknowledged that some officers had weapons drawn as they sought to gain control of the scene.
“They were doing the best that they can to make sense out of something that is chaotic, a mass casualty scene,” he said.
Smith said that no witnesses have come forward to describe how or why the shooting started and urged the public to help with the investigation.
No one was in custody by midafternoon.
Of the other seven who were shot, three had life-threatening injuries, Smith said.
The five people hit by vehicles are believed to have suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, police said in a news release. Four of them appear to have been struck while trying to leave the scene.
Juneteenth, for which celebrations started Friday, commemorates when the last enslaved African Americans learned they were free 155 years ago.

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

UP NEXT

Don’t Have a REAL ID Yet? That Could Cause You Travel Headaches After May 7

US Seeks to Weaken Global Development Finance Efforts, UN Document Shows

8 hours ago

Trump Signs Executive Order to Encourage US Drug Manufacturing

9 hours ago

Trump Administration Freezes Future Grants to Harvard

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Education informed Harvard University on Monday that it was freezing billions of dollars...

6 hours ago

Harvard University’s campus in Cambridge, Mass., Sept. 6, 2024. The Trump administration said on Monday, March 31, 2025, that it was reviewing roughly $9 billion in federal grants and contracts awarded to Harvard, accusing the school of allowing antisemitism to run unchecked on its campus. (Sophie Park/The New York Times)
6 hours ago

Trump Administration Freezes Future Grants to Harvard

Trump Takes Questions about Pope Image
7 hours ago

Trump Denies Posting Image of Himself as Pope, Laughs Off Critics

Merced Sun-Star building before demolition
8 hours ago

Old Merced Sun-Star Newspaper Building Reduced to Rubble

A 3D-printed miniature model of U.S. President Donald Trump with the United Nations logo in the background is seen in this illustration taken April 23, 2025. (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File photo)
8 hours ago

US Seeks to Weaken Global Development Finance Efforts, UN Document Shows

Signage is seen outside of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) headquarters in White Oak, Maryland, U.S., August 29, 2020. (REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo)
9 hours ago

Trump Signs Executive Order to Encourage US Drug Manufacturing

U.S. dollar banknotes are seen in this illustration taken May 4, 2025. (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration)
9 hours ago

Dollar Slides Against Peers Weighed Down by Fresh Tariff Worries

The Rivian logo is shown on one of their new electric SUV vehicles in San Diego, U.S., December 16, 2022. (REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo)
9 hours ago

Rivian to Build $120 Million Supplier Park in Illinois

President Donald Trump announces the NFL draft will be held in Washington, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 5, 2025. (REUTERS/Leah Millis)
9 hours ago

Trump Signs Order Restricting Research That Enhances Pathogens

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend