When the dispatcher questioned the Copley’s intentions, he suggested the group was responsible for vandalism in the area and were also armed with guns.
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The family of Kouren-Rodney Bernard Thomas has set up a gofundme page to raise money for his funeral expenses. I am locked and loaded. “I don’t watch the news because I’m exhausted of hearing about these boys getting killed”, she said.
“I’m going to secure my neighborhood”.
“It’s 1 in the morning”, he continued. There’s some devil in them.
A few minutes later, Copley was on the phone with dispatchers again.
“I think any court would have a hard time with that argument”, Kenny said, “because then anyone could shoot someone they were fearful of”. “I yelled at them, ‘Please leave the premises.’ They were showing a firearm, so I fired a warning shot and we got somebody”, the man says.
“Well, I don’t know if they’re shot or not, ma’am”. Please just send a vehicle. “If I were you, I’d send PD as quickly as possible”.
The 20-year-old suffered a gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at a hospital. She said the young men had arrived at the house party to find it had spilled outside, and chose to leave after about 15 minutes because the friend heard there were no girls there.
Copley was charged with first-degree murder in a case with disturbing similarities to the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
In court, Copley was told that if found guilty, he could face the death penalty.
‘It was silent, ‘ he told The News & Observer in Raleigh. 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. About 50 people were attending, half inside the home, the other half spilled out into the yard, Walker recalled. She said she believe the shooting was a form of discrimination – something she said plagues her neighborhood.
“If there were no girls there, we figured we might as well go back home”, Walker said. Walker and Thomas chose to go home – and Thomas began running when he thought he saw police, because Thomas had marijuana. “I love you more than anything and I won’t stop until we get justice for you!” He turned his head back to me, and that’s when a shot went off. We didn’t know that it came from the house. We were all looking around like, who got a gun?
Bamberg represented the family of Walter Scott, who was shot and killed by a North Charleston police officer, and the family of Alton Sterling, the Baton Rouge man whose shooting by police was captured on video. His lawyer saying in a statement, we urge restraint and that folks not rush to judgment. “At this point we can not say anything more”.
This morning, newly released 911 calls placed just moments before a fatal shooting. The News & Observer in Raleigh reported that broken glass was strewn in the front lawn and in the driveway from the blasted window he had shot through. Blood stains were visible approximately 30 feet away from the garage.
His mother, Munyir Simone Butler Thomas told New York Daily News she moved her family from the Harlem neighborhood of New York to North Carolina because she felt the city had become too risky for her children.
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A young black man who was allegedly shot to death by a neigborhood watch “vigilante” while leaving a house party in North Carolina had moved from Harlem as a baby because his mother had wanted a better life for her three sons.
