CHARLOTTE — Police are investigating after a teenager was shot to death while riding in a car on Saturday morning in Charlotte’s University City neighborhood.
Juan Ramirez, 17, was in a vehicle in the area of North Tryon Street and W.T. Harris Boulevard when he was shot, officers said.
Police were called around 12:30 a.m. when Ramirez arrived at the hospital suffering from a gunshot wound.
“I’ve known him since I was 12,” girlfriend Stephanie Hernandez Romero told Channel 9. “We were together for a year and five months.”
Hernandez said she was with Ramirez when he was shot.
“That was my boyfriend,” she said.
They were going to a party and were stopped at the intersection when the shots rang out.
“We were at a red light, singing to each other, about to eat and then I felt a push,” she said. “I blacked out for a good three seconds. I fell to the side. I stood up holding my ear, and I was like, ‘Juan, did you hear that?’”
Romero said Ramirez’s head was to the side and the window was shattered. The car had bullet holes in it and shattered glass.
Romero said she remembers there was a red truck with tinted windows next to them. She drove straight to a nearby hospital.
“I started banging on the doors,” Romero said. “A nurse came out. She was, like, ‘What happened?’ I told her. She said she was going to be back. Eight minutes passed by and I found where he got shot at. I was trying to prevent it from bleeding. I (held) his neck and everything.”
Ramirez died at the hospital on Sunday.
Police are asking for the public’s help for information in this case. You can leave an anonymous tip at CrimeStoppers: 704-334-1600.
(WATCH BELOW: 2 shot at apartments in University City, police say)
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