It has been a deadly Labor Day weekend so far in Charlotte, with five people killed in four separate shootings amid a wave of gun violence as of Sunday morning. A 7-year-old boy was shot to death and three other people were injured at a home in southwest Charlotte Saturday night. The shooting happened just before 9pm at a family party in the front yard of a home on Fieldvale Place, in the Steel Creek neighborhood. The boy was identified as Kevin Antonio Calderon Rodas. Three other people were treated at the scene for minor injuries.
Police at first said the victim was a 9-year-old girl, but said they got it wrong because of confusion at the scene and “an initial language barrier.”
As officers investigated that incident at around 12:15 AM, they responded to a report of gunfire a few blocks away on Echodale Drive. One woman was found dead of a gunshot wound, and a man had non-life-threatening injuries.
CMPD Deputy Chief Jeff Estes told reporters at the scene on Fieldvale Place: "It’s a sad state of affairs. We have a lot of soul-searching to do when, as a city and as a country, (a child) isn’t safe playing in the front yard."
Earlier Saturday, two men died after a shooting in northwest Charlotte. At around 4:45 AM someone dropped off an injured 23-year-old man at Novant Presbyterian Hospital. He died around 6:20 AM. Then, at 7:45, police found the original incident scene on North Hoskins Road, where a 25-year-old man also had been shot to death.
Another deadly shooting was reported Sunday morning around 7:30. Police were called to investigate an assault with a deadly weapon on Glenfiddich Drive, off The Plaza in east Charlotte. One man was found dead of a gunshot. No further details were available.
At a press conference Sunday, Deputy Chief Estes said CMPD was stepping up patrols after these and other shootings.
“We are asking for the community’s help in solving these crimes and preventing them from happening for the rest of the weekend and here on out,” Estes said, according to a report in The Charlotte Observer. “We think it’s an absolute tragedy in Charlotte- Mecklenburg seeing this type of violence.”
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article34237215.html#storylink=cpy
Anyone with information about the cases is asked to call Crimestoppers at 704-334-1600.