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Surveillance video captures brazen break-in at Cornelius gun range

By Mark Barber
By Mark Barber

CORNELIUS, N.C. — Officers are investigating a break-in at a Cornelius gun range where 22 guns were stolen.

Surveillance video viewers will first see on Channel 9, captured two men jumping over counters and grabbing assault rifles off the wall at Lake Norman Gun Range early Sunday morning.

Moments later, a third man appears in the back of the store. On the security tape, you see him smash through a glass counter before he starts stealing handguns.

When one of the other men comes back, he kicks out another glass counter. He starts scooping handguns into a collapsible laundry bag.

When the men run out of the store, one drops a hammer next to a pile of shattered glass.

While they left the hammer, they tried to hide their faces and fingerprints. The men wore gloves and pulled their sweatshirt hoods around their masked faces.

"I feel for the gun shopowners," resident Deb McMicheaux said.

She lives on a quiet cul-de-sac in Huntersville 4 miles away from the gun range that was targeted in Cornelius.

Police ended up near her house on Hunters Point Drive after they chased one of the suspects there.

Officers found the 22 stolen guns in a wooded area behind the neighborhood.

"We're very quiet so that's shocking," McMicheaux said.

According to a search warrant, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers rushed a K-9 unit to the area where they found one of the suspects, Lacedric McMillon, in the woods.

The search warrant states the officers found a ski mask near McMillon as well as latex gloves that match the gloves seen in the surveillance video.

Channel 9 talked with the manager of the gun range on the phone. He said the way the burglars broke into the building and then smashed right through their security defenses led him to believe this may not have been the first time the masked men had been inside the store.

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