Police: Teen arrested in connection with drug sting, shooting

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte Mecklenburg police arrested a teenager allegedly involved in a drug deal and shooting Tuesday afternoon at a north Charlotte elementary school that left a teenager dead and a police informant injured.

The Violent Criminal Apprehension Team found and arrested Davion Drayton on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. without incident. He was found at a home in the Hidden Valley area.

Drayton had not suffered any injury from Tuesday’s incident. He is being interviewed at CMPD Headquarters by Homicide Detectives. He was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. Police said there may be more charges. His bond was set at $50,000.

Late Wednesday afternoon police identified Drayton, 17, as the suspect charged with shooting the unidentified police informant at Hidden Valley Elementary School.

Police said that informant was shot in the shoulder and was last listed in fair condition in the hospital.

They said Drayton and a second teenager, Jaquaz Walker, also 17, sold drugs to the informant and an undercover officer in the parking lot of Hidden Valley Elementary School on Tuesday afternoon.

As the informant and officer walked away, police said the teenagers opened fire and hit the informant.

Officers returned fire and shot Walker, including one time in the head.  He died Tuesday night at the Carolinas Medical Center.

Walker's family told Eyewitness News Wednesday that he did not have a gun, and they questioned why police had to shoot him three times.

"He had to die by himself," his mother, Faith Walker, said Wednesday.  "I still can't see him."

The undercover drug deal was part of an ongoing drug and gang investigation in the north Charlotte area and a source close to the investigation said that threats of retaliation against police are being posted online.

 It comes as officers are trying to reassure neighbors in Hidden Valley that the incident does not wipe away all of the progress the community has made over the last five years.

"We've made so much progress with that community over the last five years," said Capt. Rob Dance, who met with neighbors on Wednesday afternoon and told them that crime has dropped by double digits in those five years.

"The numbers aren't by accident," Dance said. "It's because of the hard work that the community has come up with and put forward, and we've helped them achieve it."

WSOC