CHARLOTTE — Overall crime is down 23% for the first quarter of the year but as of last week, there have been 22 homicides in the first quarter of the year compared to last year.
The most recent shooting death happened on Saturday when a 24-year-old man was killed in a shootout in a west Charlotte neighborhood.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department says it was nearly 9 p.m. Saturday when officers responded to shots fired into a home on Dundeen Street.
When officers got to the west Charlotte neighborhood, they discovered two people were shooting at each other in the neighborhood and some of those rounds hit a home.
“It got louder,” said a woman who lives in the neighborhood and didn’t want to show her face. “It sounded like it was right in front of my house.”
She said it was hard to feel safe inside her own home with her young son when the shooting happened.
No one was hurt inside the homes that were hit, but CMPD says one of the people involved in the shooting showed up to the hospital later that night in a personal car with a gunshot wound.
That person was 24-year-old Zaquez Blakley, who later died due to that injury.
Neighbors we talked to say this isn’t the first time they have heard gunshots in the neighborhood. They are worried it won’t be the last.
“I’ve been scared. There’s been like three shootings happen. It has to all be connected somehow,” the neighbor said. “Definitely, somebody knows something, so I don’t know. I feel like they should care about the community too.”
Police are still investigating. There’s no word yet on the other alleged shooter in the incident.
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