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Mysterious Shootings Have Residents On Edge

A woman in Plaza Midwood pauses at a makeshift memorial for Katherine Jones, whose body was found at the site early Saturday.
Adam Bell
/
Charlotte Observer
A woman in Plaza Midwood pauses at a makeshift memorial for Katherine Jones, whose body was found at the site early Saturday.

Two fatal shootings within a few days of each other last week have residents a bit on edge. Both shootings appear to be random although police are saying little about either case.

The first one happened shortly after 5 p.m. on Oct. 11. Twenty-nine-year-old Chirrelle Nicole Scott was in her vehicle at the intersection of Harris Boulevard and North Tryon Street in the University City area. She was alone. According to police, someone fired into her vehicle. She died at the scene. No suspect has been identified and police have not released a motive. Police will only say the investigation is ongoing and that police patrols have increased in the area.

Four days later, 26-year-old Katherine Jones left a bar in the Plaza Midwood area around 2:45 a.m. Police responded to a call of shots fired. They found Jones' body near the busy intersection of The Plaza and Central Avenue. Again, no suspect or motive identified. Police will only say that the investigation is continuing. Plaza Midwood Neighborhood Association board member Larken Egleston says he and others in the community find the lack of information unsettling.

“The uncertainty of not having located the person who did it or identifying what led to it certainly makes people uneasy,” Egleston said. “People look for logical explanations for these things to reassure themselves and not having one yet definitely scares people.”

CMPD officials say they have beefed up patrols in Plaza Midwood, where many bars and restaurants are open late and people in the neighborhood often walk home from them. Egleston says he’s not heard of people staying at home because of the fatal shooting, but he says they are being more cautious.

“Maybe grabbing an Uber to take that short walk home or walking on a more well-lit or highly trafficked path home. It makes people evaluate how to get to and from where they are going, especially late at night,” he said.

Police have not said if the two shootings were random or connected in any way. They are asking anyone with information to call CMPD’s homicide unit. According to the department’s website, there are still 12 open homicides from last year, 11 are shootings. A CMPD spokesman says the number of open cases for this year is not available. 

Gwendolyn is an award-winning journalist who has covered a broad range of stories on the local and national levels. Her experience includes producing on-air reports for National Public Radio and she worked full-time as a producer for NPR’s All Things Considered news program for five years. She worked for several years as an on-air contract reporter for CNN in Atlanta and worked in print as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun Media Group, The Washington Post and covered Congress and various federal agencies for the Daily Environment Report and Real Estate Finance Today. Glenn has won awards for her reports from the Maryland-DC-Delaware Press Association, SNA and the first-place radio award from the National Association of Black Journalists.