Her son, she said, wasn’t a “hoodlum”.
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The witness says the 20-year-old victim was shot in the arm, is unconscious and lying in the road.
The shot did hit Thomas, and he later died at the hospital.
According to police, 39-year-old Chad Copley stood in the garage of his home and shot Thomas, who was outside.
A relative told the News & Observer that Thomas’ family was not doing well. The shooting was said to have come from “inside the garage”. “I’m on neighborhood watch”. She told police that she was upstairs and unaware of what was going on. “I wanted them to have a life and be safe”, she said, her voice cracking.
“I don’t know how to deal with this”.
He then called back and told the 911 operator: “We got somebody that got hit”. “That’s your right”, Bamberg said. “At this point we can not say anything more”. “That kinda struck a nerve when I heard that one”, he said.
“And I don’t have him no more and there’s nothing I can do”.
Butler-Thomas said she hopes no other parents have to bury their children because of a violent death.
“I’m just exhausted. Everybody should be exhausted everyday”, she said. The Washington Post shares the words of Simone Butler-Thomas, stated during a telephone interview. “When is it going to end?” “I wish that everybody would not have to go through what we have to go through. I want this to be the last time”.
Copley is charged with first-degree murder and is being held without bail. “At this point we can not say anything more”. Moments before the shooting, a 911 caller from Copley’s home reported “a bunch of hoodlums out here racing”.
When the dispatcher asks her what happened, she responds, “I don’t know”.
“I’m going to secure my neighbourhood”, Copley said.
Wednesday, Bamberg drew comparisons between Copley and George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed unarmed teen Trayvon Martin in 2012 in a a Sanford, Fla. neighborhood.
Much like the Martin case, Sunday’s shooting can be partially pieced together through 911 calls. There is some vandalism and they have firearms.
The mother of a black man fatally shot by a white homeowner who claimed he was going to “secure his neighborhood” from “hoodlums” pleaded for justice and broader social change so that “other parents won’t have to go through this”. “Please, send PD. Thank you”.
David Walker, a friend of Thomas’, told The News & Observer that he and Thomas were in the neighborhood for a party two doors down from Copley’s house. His jeans were outside his boots, she said. “They weren’t there a half hour”.
He went out and confronted the group and they started cursing at him. “We had numerous African-American kids outside at a party, hanging out”.
“Someone just got shot”, one of the callers says. I think race did play a role in it.
Kristian Williams said his younger brother was the only person who could make him smile.
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Neuse Crossing residents don’t have a neighborhood watch group, said Mike Ellis, a co-owner and spokesman for Kohn-Ell Association Management, which manages homeowners’ associations across the city, including at Neuse Crossing. I’m going to have the neighbors with me. “Recently, I was in the yard when a lady said “oh the kids are running around”.
