“I lost somebody that I can’t even put in words how much they’ve taken from us”, said brother Kristian Williams. You need to send PD as quickly as possible.
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The police department did not have time to reach the scene. The last call for vandalism dates back to March. “I yelled at them to please leave the premises”, he explained, adding that he saw someone display a weapon. We’ve had a bunch of hoodlums out here racing. “I fired my warning shot like I’m supposed to by law”. They were raised in families with mothers and fathers.
An investigation determined Copley was standing inside his garage when he fired a single shot from his shotgun.
When the dispatcher tried to get more information, such as who had been hit or where he was located, Copley told the dispatcher, “Please just send a auto”. He was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later.
Meanwhile, Thomas’ family has hired attorney Justin Bamburg, a SC lawmaker who also represents the children of Alton Sterling, who was killed last month by police in Baton Rouge, La., and previously represented the family of Walter Scott, who was killed by a North Charleston, S.C., police officer past year.
Though there appears to be no evidence of a physical altercation between Copley and Thomas, the case bears similarities to the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, in which neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman killed the unarmed teen in Sanford, Florida, in 2012.
So what exactly happened that caused one young man to lose his life, and another man to risk losing his? According to a witness, the victim, Kouren-Rodney Bernard Thomas, was at a party on Copley’s street when Copley fired from inside his home Sunday.
Thomas and Walker had arrived at the house party in Raleigh to find it had spilled outside, and made a decision to leave after 15 minutes. He turned around and looked at me and the shot went off and I was just, man, this is not happening.
The two friends stood outside, waiting for someone to give them permission to come in, when, Walker said, a person they knew told them: “Bro, it ain’t no girls”.
Walker told the News & Observer that Thomas “had a little weed on him”, and took off running towards their auto.
The dispatcher asks who is outside his house, and the man says he doesn’t know but there’s a party at a nearby home. We were all looking around like, who got a gun?
Copley shot from inside his garage, hitting Thomas.
Thomas’ two brothers say he was a good kid and that he didn’t deserve this.
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While the facts around Thomas’ death are still coming in and Copley’s fate remains to be seen, friends and family had loving words about Thomas. His mother, Simone Butler-Thomas, described him as a comedian who had worked at a Waffle House since 2014.
