South Charlotte ATM Shooting Witness: “I knew it was a gunshot”

From www.wbtv.com, January 26, 2012 by Kristy Etheridge, Reporter

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) – One of just a few witnesses in a South Charlotte shooting talked exclusively to WBTV Thursday.

Ola Antonissen was walking out of Curves at the Foxcroft shopping center off Fairview Road when she heard a gunshot.

 

“I heard this pop sound, and even though I’ve never heard a real gunshot before, I pretty much knew it was a gunshot,” said Antonissen.

Her eyes followed the sound to a nearby Wells Fargo ATM in the middle of the parking lot.

“I saw the door to the ATM, the back door where nobody usually goes in, I saw it was open and I thought that was strange. Then I saw somebody run to the left really fast, and somebody sort of run to the right. I was more focused on the person running to the left just because that was where my eye drew,” she said.

 

It turns out her eye was drawn to the suspected shooter.  At the time, Antonissen wasn’t sure if she was looking at the victim or the gunman.  She just saw a hunched-over figure in a gray sweat suit running away.

 

“I was trying to figure out what to do to protect myself first of all, because I didn’t know if it was one of these shootouts where somebody just goes shooting,” said Antonissen.

 

She said something inside her told her to just stand still and keep quiet, so that’s what she did.  For a minute, she was the only one standing in the parking lot.  Then, two men came out of a nearby building to see what had happened.

 

Someone called the police, who showed up just a few minutes later to take a statement from Antonissen and investigate the shooting.

 

Antonissen later found out a woman who worked out of a Loomis armored car had been shot in the shoulder and was in critical condition.  That’s when she realized how fortunate she was to be ok.

 

“It’s 8:30, 8:40 in the morning. For someone to have done that, they could do anything,” said Antonissen. “If he saw me standing there, just looking at him, and he had a gun, he might’ve thought, well she just witnessed it, and that could’ve been very dangerous.”

 

Three days after the shooting, police and FBI agents are still looking for the shooter.  A $20,000 reward is offered for information that leads to his arrest.

 

The condition of the victim, 47 year old Lakeda Duncan, is unknown.  At last check she was in critical condition with life threatening injuries.

 

Antonissen said she’s praying for Duncan every day, as she thanks God for her own blessings.

 

“I definitely have belief in God, and I feel like that morning He was protecting me,” she said. “It wasn’t my time.”

Raleigh, NC Woman Attacks Home Intruder with Bedpost

From www.wbtv.com, January 25, 2012 by Chris Dyshes

RALEIGH, NC (WBTV/WRAL) – A Raleigh woman says she was getting into the shower when a man came into her house, and she had to defend herself with a bedpost.

According to WRAL-TV, Victoria Jones was undressing to take a shower earlier this month when she saw the man walking down the hallway.

Jones was home with her 10-year-old sister and 9-year-old son at the time.

She says the first thing she saw was the wooden bedpost and she “nailed him” with it, WRAL reports.

“What I am scared of is about what could have happened, and that’s why I gave it all I had,” Jones said. “I didn’t know what his plans were and what would happen to my kids if I didn’t do the best I could to get him out of here.”

The incident happened on January 13.

Police told WRAL  that Jones’ sister ran to a neighbor’s house for help after the man came into the home.

“We were just playing with the dog, and he just walked in,” Massey said. “I was thinking, ‘What if I screamed, and he could have did something to me and my nephew, and then my life would have been over.”

Jones says after she hit the man with her bedpost, she chased him down the hall where she took one final swing.

“I hit him that one last time, and he just went out cold,” she told WRAL.

That’s when Jones says her neighbors got to the house and they held the man until police could get there.

Forty-year-old Lucio Miranda was charged with first-degree burglary and first-degree possession of stolen goods by police in Raleigh.

Lucio Miranda, 40. (Photo source: WRAL.com)

He was reportedly found with the keys to Jones’ car in his pocket.

Officers transported Miranda to the hospital to be treated for injuries he received during the bedpost beating. He reportedly suffered a black eye, a broken ankle and an injury to his head.

He was then booked in the Wake County jail and is being held on a $108,000 bond.

$20,000 Reward Offered After Armored Car Employee Shot in Robbery

From www.wbtv.com By Chris Dyches, Web Content Producer, January 25, 2012

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) – Federal investigators are offering a big reward for information after a female armored truck employee was shot during an armed robbery in the SouthPark area.

According to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, Loomis employees were robbed at the Foxcroft Shopping Center early Monday morning, just before 9 a.m.

Police say 47-year-old Ladena Duncan, of Charlotte, was seriously wounded when she shot in the upper arm while she was working on a Wells Fargo ATM at the shopping center.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigations, witnesses describe the robber as a black male, 15-25 years old, with a small build.

He was wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt, black t-shirt, grey sweatpants, black Nike shoes with a white stripe, and a baseball cap with a silver sticker on the brim. He had a white glove on his right hand; it can be seen in surveillance video as he runs away with a gun in his hand, investigators say.

To view the FBI Wanted Poster for this crime use this link:

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/alert/unknown-suspect/view

The location is a small group of stores at Fairview and Valencia Terrace, including Caribou Coffee, where a man walked from last year and was later killed along a neighborhood street. (Click here to read that story)

After Duncan was shot Loomis employees tried to drive her to the hospital, but they stopped along the way and called for medical help.

According to MEDIC, emergency officials were called to the intersection of Providence Road and Cavendish Court, nearly two miles away from the shooting.  Duncan was transported to Carolina Medical Center with serious injuries.

Police say Charlotte County Day School, which is in the area, was on lock down for about an hour as a precaution during this incident.

On Tuesday, the FBI Charlotte Division announced that it was offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information which leads to the identification and successful prosecution of the person responsible for the robbery.

The FBI is investigating this robbery and shooting in partnership with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.  Anyone with information should call FBI Charlotte at 704-672-6100 or the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Crime Stoppers at 704-334-1600. 

Flying Biscuit Could Face Penalty for Hiring a Felon After Deadly Stabbing

From www.wbtv.com By Chris Dyches, Web Content Producer, January 25, 2012

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) – Owners of a restaurant where a pregnant woman was killed nearly two weeks ago could face a penalty for hiring a convicted felon – the co-worker accused of stabbing the 25-year-old manager to death.

Danielle Watson was a manager at the Flying Biscuit on Rea Road only a few weeks when she was fatally stabbed during a robbery January 13th.

Police arrested her co-worker, Mark Cox, and charged him with the murder. Cox will also likely face a murder charge for the death of Watson’s unborn baby. She was only a couple months pregnant.

The 22-year-old was already a convicted a felon three times over. In one case, he robbed his own co-workers at gunpoint at another restaurant during closing time.

Wednesday, state Alcohol Law Enforcement agents said they plan to cite the restaurant owners for hiring a convicted felon. State law prohibits establishments with a permit to serve alcohol from hiring someone who’s been convicted of a felony within the last three years.

The ABC Commission will review the violation. In his report, the ALE agent said the restaurant’s owner said a criminal background check was never done on Cox.

A criminal background check is not technically required by state law, except in some select jobs. However, the general statue which deals with permitting businesses to serve alcohol does place responsibility with the employer.

“During the short time Mark Cox was employed by the Flying Biscuit Cafe he performed his responsibilities accordingly and was trusted by his co-workers,” owner Hugh Bigham said in a statement to WBTV on Wednesday.

“During the interview process, Cox acknowledged a previous conviction. He was given a chance and initially hired on a trial basis. There are many victims of this horrible tragedy but our primary focus today, and going forward, is helping the family of Danielle Watson. Danielle was a wonderful person and her death is a terrible loss to all of us.”

The Flying Biscuit owners have said they plan to create a permanent memorial to the slain manager.
Watson’s fiancé, Keith Smith, has said Watson had no idea she was working with a convicted felon.

Cox worked in the kitchen. He landed the job a few weeks after finishing a three-year prison sentence.

Police say they found bloody clothes and a butcher knife in Cox’s apartment. He lived within walking distance from the restaurant. His sister told police he confessed to the crime.

The restaurant could face a warning or fine, depending on the ABC Commission’s findings.

CMPD Officers Receiving New Tasers

From The Charlotte Observer By Meghan Cooke, January 25, 2012

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police are putting Tasers back into officers’ hands today, six months after use of the weapons was suspended following the death of a 21-year-old suspect.

In September, the Charlotte City Council voted to spend $1.83 million for 1,600 Taser X2 stun guns. Police says the new Tasers have safety features to prevent officers from possibly injuring or killing suspects.

Taser X2

The Taser X2 will replace the model previously used by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, the X26 Taser.

The Taser X2, produced by Arizona-based Taser International, has a five-second limit on each electric charge, a function that makes the device more safe, police have said. Officers using the new Taser can also trigger a visible and audible warning that may convince suspects to comply without evening firing the weapon.

Use of the department’s nearly 1,200 Taser X26 stun guns was suspended on July 21. The day before, police were called to a Lynx light rail station along Old Pineville Road after a report of a man beating and choking a woman. The suspect was identified as Lareko Williams.

The first officer to respond fired his X26 Taser just as Williams was about to strike the woman again, police said. Williams became unresponsive, police said, and the officer called for help. Williams died about an hour later.
Williams’ death came only a day after a federal jury awarded $10 million to the family of Darryl Wayne Turner, the 17-year-old who died after a CMPD officer shocked him with a Taser in 2008. The jury found that Taser International failed to warn that the weapon could cause cardiac arrest. In that case, police said the officer violated policy when he shocked Turner for about 37 seconds. The city of Charlotte denied wrongdoing, but it paid $625,000 to Turner’s family.

After Williams’ death last summer, all of the department’s Tasers were collected from officers, tested and inspected, police said. About a month later, police announced they’d finished a month-long internal review on Taser use but that officers would not carry the devices until a second, outside review was completed.

Then police examined the possibility of purchasing a newer model.

Police Chief Rodney Monroe said last year that Tasers enhance citizen safety by “giving officers a viable option to minimize injuries to themselves and others.”

But the devices, which can discharge 50,000 volts to briefly incapacitate suspects, have been linked to hundreds of deaths across the country. Police in Fayetteville suspended their use of Tasers last year after a 56-year-old man died while officers tried to subdue him with one.

 

Top 15 Killers of Americans: Homicides Are Off the List, Even Though More People are Carrying Guns Than Ever Before

From The Buckeye Firearms Association by Chad D. Baus, January 19, 2012

CNN.com is reporting that while the leading killers of Americans continue to be non-infectious diseases like heart disease, strokes and lung diseases, one of the perpetual causes of death fell off the top 15 list this year:

Homicides.

From the article:

“Most of the changes were positive,” said Sherry Murphy, a statistician at the National Center of Health Statistics and one of the authors of the annual mortality report. “Homicides fell from among the 15 leading causes for the first time since 1965.”

Even as this news was breaking, news outlets across the country were reporting that sales of firearms had spiked to new highs during the Christmas shopping season. What’s more, thanks to passage of concealed carry laws in more states, and to improvements of those laws in states that have existing laws, more Americans are exercising their Second Amendment rights by legally carrying concealed handguns than at any time in our nation’s history.

If guns are tools of destruction designed only for killing, as those in the gun ban lobby claim, this good news could never have happened.

Chad D. Baus is the Buckeye Firearms Association Vice Chairman.

 

Female Armored Car Worker Shot in Brazen Daylight Robbery Near South Park

From www.wbtv.com By Chris Dyches, Web Content Producer, January 23, 2012

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) – At least one school was on lock down for hours Monday morning after police say a female armored truck employee was shot during an armed robbery in the SouthPark area.

According to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, Loomis Fargo employees were robbed at the Foxcroft Shopping Center early Monday morning, just before 9 a.m.

The location is a small group of stores at Fairview and Valencia Terrace, including Caribou Coffee, where a man walked from last year and was later killed along a neighborhood street. (Click here to read that story)

A previous report of the armord car incident at Fairview and Sharon roads was incorrect.

Police told WBTV that the female employee, 47-year-old Ladena Duncan of Charlotte, was seriously wounded when she shot in the upper arm while she was working on a Wells Fargo ATM at the shopping center.

After Duncan was shot Loomis Fargo employees tried to drive her to the hospital, but they stopped along the way and called for medical help.

According to MEDIC, emergency officials were called to the intersection of Providence Road and Cavendish Court, nearly two miles away from the shooting.  Duncan was transported to Carolina Medical Center with serious injuries.

Police say Charlotte County Day School, which is in the area, was on lock down until about 10:45 am as a precaution during this incident.

Officers say they don’t know if the shooter got away with any money.

Search Warrant Return Says CMPD Found Blood-Soaked Uniform, Knife in Home of Flying Biscuit Murder Suspect

From www.wbtv.com, January 23, 2012

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) – A murder suspect confessed to his sister to fatally stabbing a pregnant co-worker more than ten hours before police found her body behind a dumpster, a police search warrant shows.

 A Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police search warrant shows that Mark A. Cox also admitted to his sister at 10:50 pm Friday, Jan. 13, that he had also stolen the victim’s car earlier that night.

Cox’s sister, despite seeing bloody clothing at their family home and knowing about Danielle Watson’s stolen car, apparently did not call police, who found Watson’s body after someone discovered her behind a dumpster near the cafe where Cox worked with her.

Police say  Cox, 22, stabbed  Watson, 25, during a robbery at the Flying Biscuit Cafe off Rea Road in the Stonecrest Shopping Center last Friday night.

Watson, who was two-months pregnant, was the manager at closing time; Cox was her co-worker — who was hired weeks after getting out of prison. 

According to a CMPD search warrant signed on January 14, officers were called to the Flying Biscuit at 6:24 a.m. about a larceny. When officers arrived, an employee at the store said they had found the business open, including a safe, and said that money was missing from the restaurant.

When officers entered the restaurant, they found blood inside the building. Nearly two-and-a-half hours later, an employee with Allied Waste Company told officers that he had found a woman’s body behind the dumpster in the parking lot adjacent to the Flying Biscuit.  Officers say the woman was identified as Watson.

According to the warrant, officers determined that Watson was supposed to be closing the restaurant with Mark Cox the previous night.

When officers arrived at the home the Cox shared with family members, they saw “a blood trail leading to the residence, as well as blood on the front door,” the warrant states.

A person who lives in the home allowed officers into the home, the warrant says, where officers saw “a large amount of apparent blood on the kitchen counter, as well as throughout the residence.” The officers also found a large butcher knife in a mug filled with an unknown liquid on the kitchen, according to the warrant.

Officers spoke to Chelsea Amanda Cox, Mark’s sister, who told officers that Cox had come to the home around 10:50 p.m. and said that he needed to talk to her.

 According to the warrant, Cox confessed to his sister that he had stabbed Watson multiple times during an argument and had dumped her body in a dumpster. Chelsea Cox also told officers that she found a white plastic trash bag in her closet, with Mark Cox’s work uniform, which was soaked in blood.

Cox reportedly told his sister that he had taken Watson’s vehicle and was planning to dump the bloody clothes and the vehicle in a river, the warrant states.

Police spoke to another employee of the Flying Biscuit who told officers that Cox had come to his home around 11 p.m. Friday night.

The employee told officers that Cox had “an unknown amount of money on his lap when he arrived,” the warrant states. Officers showed the employee a picture of Watson’s vehicle, which the employee identified as the vehicle Cox was driving.

Cox was arrested on Monday and later brought back to Charlotte. He is being held in the Mecklenburg County jail without bond.

Employees told WBTV that Cox, who had just been hired in December after serving three years in prison for robbery, worked in the restaurant’s kitchen. Watson, hired just a week or two after Cox, was a manager there and had access to the safe.

CMPD said Watson’s fiance received a phone call late Friday night that led him to believe Watson was in trouble. He tried to get back in touch with her, but when he couldn’t, he called police.

There was a mix-up though with the address and it took several hours for police to figure out all the details.

Watson’s case would be the first one prosecuted under the “Unborn Victim’s Act.” The new law took effect December 1. It allows prosecutors to charge an offender with murder of a fetus even if the offender or victim did not know about the pregnancy.

Cox is currently facing one count of murder, but on Wednesday the District Attorney’s Office said it planned to seek an additional murder charge against Cox for killing Watson’s unborn child.

Lancaster, SC Woman’s Brutal Killing Prompts Personal Safety Courses

From www.wbtv.com By Derrick Rose, Reporter, January 24, 2012

LANCASTER, SC (WBTV) – When her friends and family took a moment to reflect on her life, somehow, they knew Hope Melton’s death would not be in vain. The Lancaster County Sheriffs Department is making sure that happens.

It was how Melton died that made the effort possible. She left a gas station last month, not knowing she would be chased, kidnapped and beaten to death with a bat.
The suspect, according to investigators, was someone she never knew, but had crossed her path for just a moment that day.

That’s the reason the phone calls started flooding into the Sheriff’s Department.

“Mostly women have been the folks that are calling asking for this type of thing, they’re the ones that have created the demand,” Major Matt Shaw said.

The department’s response has been information: step by step instructions and tools to keep you the public safe from attackers.
Shaw will be the instructor for a series of classes around the county starting this week.

He points out our first and best weapon is ourselves.

“We are so busy and caught up with all the things that are going on in our life with work; we’ve got our cellphones glued to our hands, we’re not paying attention to what’s going on around us, we don’t see the person in the parking lot that’s coming across, to confront us or talk to us.”

There are also some weapons that are simple. but effective.

“It’s a kitty cat,” Shaw said, showing off a keychain accessory that when held a certain way can be used as a sharp defense weapon. “Other places that would prohibit use of a firearm, you would be able to carry something like this and used as a last ditch effort to get somebody off of you,” he said.

It’s about having options in a life or death situation, he said.

Knowing what to do is important, but more so, hopefully never having to do it.

Concealed Weapons Laws

North Carolina
South Carolina

Safety Class Dates, Locations

Jan 25 6:30pm USCL Carol Ray Dowling Center
Jan 30 6:30pm Buford High School Auditorium
Jan 31 6:30pm Indian Land High School Gym
Feb 1  6:30pm Andrew Jackson High School Auditorium

All classes are free. Class size will be limited to the number of seats available at the specific venue. No pre-registration is required.

Charotte City Council Approves Protest Rule Changes Amid Raucous Meeting

From www.wsoctv.com, January 24, 2012

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Charlotte City Council meeting over protest rule changes got rowdy Monday night.

 The council passed the new rules mostly for the Democratic National Convention, but they affect Occupy Charlotte demonstrators, too.

 Protestors in the crowd laughed at public officials, shouted, booed and hissed. They mocked council members throughout the hearing. Two city leaders reprimanded them: Mayor Anthony Foxx and the usually soft-spoken council member David Howard.

 ”It was very disturbing that you guys laughed when we talked about — you heard what he said,” Howard said.

 When the vote passed, the audience burst into shouts and chants. City leaders called a recess. Most stood up and walked out. The crowd took the rally into the lobby, where dozens of police were already on hand. At last check, no one was arrested.

 ”I knew this was going to happen, and I’m upset that it happened, but I was prepared for it to happen. I am very proud of all my brothers and sisters who stood up today and voiced their opinions,” activist Alex Tyler said.

 City leaders wouldn’t put a sunset clause on the rules, but they did agree to review the rules after the January presidential inauguration.

 New rules forbid camping on city property, which Occupy Charlotte has been doing. Council members agreed to give occupiers a grace period to leave. One possibility is next Monday.