Two victims gave similar descriptions of a foursome who robbed them at gunpoint early this morning in east Charlotte.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police received one report that a person was robbed at 7000 E. W.T. Harris Blvd. at 4:41 a.m., and another similar report at 8900 Albemarle Road at 5:30 a.m. Both victims said four Hispanic males in a blue vehicle robbed them. Neither victim was injured.
Police say a would-be burglar ran from a Gastonia home after scuffling with a resident Tuesday night.
The home invasion happened on Sunset Avenue before 9 p.m., said Gastonia Police Sgt. Keith McCabe. A man broke into the home and fought with the resident, running away after several shots were fired.
Neither the resident nor the suspect were injured.
McCabe said police are looking for a black man between 5 feet, 6 inches and 5 feet, 8 inches tall. He was wearing a black ski mask when he broke into the residence.
The man who broke into the house brought the gun, which fired during the struggle, McCabe said. Police are unsure whether the person who broke into the house was injured in the shooting.
A woman at a home on the 1600 block of Greenview Drive was shot in the back as she tried to close the door on a man she did not know, Gastonia Police Sgt. Keith McCabe said.
The incident began with a knock at the door at 9:59 p.m. Tuesday, McCabe said. When the woman realized she did not know the man, she closed the door and three shots were fired through it, he said.
At the same time, shots were fired through the rear door of an adjacent apartment.
The 34-year-old woman was in stable condition Wednesday morning at Gaston Memorial Hospital, McCabe said.
CHARLOTTE – In just weeks, a new youthful offender housing unit will open in north Charlotte.
The county’s 56 inmates will be spread out across small pods. County leaders say the new facility will allow them to work more closely with 16- and 17-year-olds and keep them out of jail later as adults.
Now, Mecklenburg County’s youthful inmates live together without much separation.
“You can’t let everyone out in the day room at the same time,” Sheriff Chip Bailey said. “You have to work with them and split them up.”
But that will change with the new unit at Jail North on Spector Drive. The facility will break inmates up into four 12-person pods.
“The units will give us a lot more closeness with the kids,” Bailey said. “We’ll be able to work with them with our programming we operate here, the educational components, the counseling components.”
Jail administrators say this pod system is easier for detention officers to manage and avoids the potential of having rival gang members close together.
“We can house first-time offenders and more vulnerable kids in a pod to isolate them from more of the hardened kids,” Karen Simon, director of inmate programs, said.
With those issues resolved, Bailey said the pod system can more attentively help inmates learn a trade, earn their GED and hopefully keep them from landing behind bars later in life.
“The whole intent here is to change their mindset, and change their life and the way they look at things, and keep them from coming back,” Bailey said.
That’s why officials are optimistic they’re doing more than building new jails.
“They haven’t gotten good direction, and many of them take full advantage of the opportunity to make different life choices,” Simon said.
Jail administrators expect the youth offenders will move into their new cells between mid-January and early February.
Case Update: Saturday, December 12, 2009 3:33 p.m.
Earlier today, VCAT took Ronald Jerome Tolson into custody for the murder of Mr. Foster. Mr. Tolson, DOB: 02/10/1986, has been charged with First Degree Murder in this case. The case remains under active investigation and additional charges against Mr. Tolson may follow. Warrants against Mr. Tolson in unrelated cases will also be served against him today when he is taken to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office. Those warrants include: Reckless Driving, Resist Public Officer, Hit and Run Property Damage, DWLR, Fail to Head Blue Lights and Siren.
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Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Homicide Unit Detectives are conducting a homicide investigation at 6317 Monroe Road . The call for service came in just before 2:15 a.m., on Saturday, December 12, 2009. The victim has been identified as Marcus Foster, DOB: 12/28/1983.
Independence Division officers received a call for service in reference to a shooting in the parking lot of Silver Oaks Apartments. Officers arrived on scene less than two minutes after the call was dispatched and found Mr. Foster suffering from an apparent gunshot wound. Mr. Foster was in the common area of Silver Oaks with his two brothers when they had an argument with a black male suspect who subsequently fired multiple shots at them. Mr. Foster was shot at least once and ran across Idlewild Road to the rear of a shopping center located at the 5400 block of Independence Boulevard . Independence Division officers located Mr. Foster, who was conscious at the time. Medic transported Mr. Foster to Carolinas Medical Center , where he was pronounced deceased at 2:49 a.m.
This investigation is in its early stages; at this time it appears that this is not a random act of violence and that the suspect who fired the shots at Mr. Foster and his brothers was known to them. The suspect is believed to have fled the scene onto Monroe Road in a green Saturn sedan.
Detectives with the Homicide Unit and ADW Unit are on scene conducting the investigation. Crime Scene Search is on scene as well, photographing the scene and collecting physical evidence.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call 704-432-TIPS and speak directly to a Homicide Unit. Detective T. Burkard is the lead detective assigned to the case. In addition, you may also call Crime Stoppers at 704-334-1600.
Robert P. Fey | Public Affairs Officer
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department
601 East Trade Street | Charlotte, NC 28202
704.336.2338 o | 704.619.4169 c
While “off duty”, SCP Founder Brian Lutes discovered and interrupted 7 vandals, all of whom were white males appearing to be between the ages of 15 -17, who were in the process of spray painting graffiti on the exterior rear wall of the school’s gymnasium between 7:15 & 7:35 PM on Saturday December 12, 2009.
Lutes was jogging around the rear of the school when he smelled paint fumes and heard voices coming from the roof of the main brick portion of the school nearest the mobile classrooms located at the rear of the facility that borders the Rama Rd. Park.
Upon investigating the circumstances observed, Lutes found several spray paint cans being thrown off of the roof of the school and landing near a tool shed in front of the mobile classrooms.
While Lutes was contacting the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Dept. via cell phone to report the criminal activity, the vandals exited the roof using a chain-link fence that serves as an enclosure for a garbage dumpster near a “service entrance” directly across from the entrance to the gymnasium.
Once on the ground, the vandals threw a plastic bag containing several spray paint cans against a wooden fence near a short gravel lane leading to the mobile classrooms and walked toward the mobile classrooms where Lutes was located.
Upon seeing Lutes, the teens, in two groups, ran toward the Officer while yelling “He’s calling the cops” making Lutes believe he was going to be attacked. Lutes dropped his cell phone and prepared to take defensive measures.
Three of the teens charged Lutes while the other four “broke-off” and ran through the Park. Lutes was able to fend off the attack by holding one of the teens by the shirt collar with his left hand while warding off the other two with his right hand.
In the scuffle, Lutes and one of the teens fell in a muddy spot near the school’s tool shed allowing the group of vandals to flee through the Park to a car that was parked at the Beckett Ct. entrance to the Park. The vehicle left the scene turning left on to Ashmeade Rd. leaving one of the teens behind who fled the area on foot through the back yards of homes between the school baseball field and Ashmeade Rd.
One of the teens that charged Lutes stood around 6 feet 2 inches, weighed around 150 pounds, was wearing blue jeans, a black hooded sweatshirt and a red ball cap. Another was about 5 feet 10 inches tall with sandy-blond hair in a close “bowl” type cut and he wore blue jeans and a flannel button-down shirt.
The vehicle the teens used to leave the scene appeared to be an older maroon four door similar to a Mercury Topaz.
Two Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officers arrived at the school within about 10 minutes to take Lutes’s report of the incident, survey the graffiti and collect the discarded spray paint cans which were processed for fingerprint evidence. The recovered fingerprints will be processed through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for possible matches. If any of the vandals has been fingerprinted in relation to criminal activity in the past their identity will be discovered.
Anyone with any information or who may have seen a speeding car leaving the area of Beckett Court & Ashmeade Rd. around 8:00 PM on Saturday December 12, 2009 is asked to call SCP Founder Brian Lutes @ 980-297-8446 or CMPD Officer J.T. Cannon through Crime Stoppers @ 704-334-1600.
Crime Prevention Officers from the Stonehaven Community Patrol discovered two separate unlocked doors at the Rama Rd. Elementary School at on Sunday December 13, 2009 while conducting a patrol check of the facility.
Unfortunately, the discovery is not the first time SCP Officers have discovered unlocked doors at the school and prior reports of unlocked doors can be found in the archives of this web-site.
The first unlocked door, the right-hand entry door at the school’s main entrance, was discovered at 1:06 AM. Officers pulled the door to insure it was locked, but it came right open. When Officers closed the door tightly and tried to open it again, the door was locked, so it appears that the door simply was not fully closed by school staff on Friday December 11, 2009.
The second unlocked door, an entry door located to the left of the gymnasium and to the right of the entry doors leading to an interior “alley way” designed for children to play in, leading to a hallway leading to the rear of the gymnasium was discovered at 1:20 AM.
When Officers pulled the door to insure it was locked, the door came right open. Officers re-closed the door and re-checked it, but unlike the door at the school’s main entry, the door did not lock.
Officers notified the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Dept. and the school’s Principal, Brian A. Bambauer, of the unlocked doors.
Later that same day, at 1:27 PM, SCP Officers again checked the above referenced hallway entry door and discovered the was still unlocked.
Posted: 3:27 pm EST December 14, 2009
Updated: 3:58 pm EST December 14, 2009
Man Arrested After Brief Struggle
TYLER, Texas — A 25-year-old man suspected of breaking into an east Texas house is jailed after police found him taking a bath in the house. The incident happened about 3:30 a.m. Sunday in a blue-collar neighborhood of northwest Tyler. Police Sgt. Matthew Smyser said a resident called to report that a man had kicked in the front door of the house. While en route, officers were advised the resident had left the house but the intruder remained inside.
Officers entered the house to find the man had stripped and was taking a bath. After a brief struggle, the man was arrested and booked into the Smith County Jail.
Larry Ticey was jailed on a misdemeanor criminal trespass charge punishable upon conviction by up to one year in jail. No bond amount or attorney is listed in jail records.
Posted: // Dec 12, 2009 9:06 AM EST
Updated: // Dec 14, 2009 11:18 AM EST
CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) – Police have charged a man with murder in the death of a 25-year-old who was killed in east Charlotte early Saturday morning.
Monroe Road homicide0:30 |
The shooting happened in the parking lot of the Silver Oaks Apartments on Monroe Road around 2:15 a.m.
According to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, Marcus Foster was shot once and ran across Idlewild Road to a shopping center on Independence Boulevard.
He was taken to a local hospital and died a short time later.
Within hours of the shooting, CMPD officers charged Ronald Jerome Tolson with first-degree murder. Tolson also faces several unrelated traffic charges police said. He is scheduled to be in court on Tuesday afternoon.
If you have any information about this weekend’s shooting, call Crime Stoppers at 704-334-1600 or 704-432-TIPS.
Posted: // Dec 14, 2009 12:40 PM EST
Updated: // Dec 14, 2009 1:15 PM EST
CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) – The employees at a restaurant in Belmont were forced into a freezer during a robbery Monday morning.
The incident occurred at the KFC at 6813 East Wilkinson Boulevard around 9:48 a.m.According to the Belmont Police Department, the robber was a black male wearing a ski mask, black hoody and Timberland boots.
The robber put a semi-automatic pistol up to an employee’s head and forced all the workers into the freezer.
The robber stole money out of the office and left in a mid-90s model silver or gray colored Buick driven by a black female.
No one was hurt during the robbery.
Detectives are trying to determine if the suspect is responsible for a recent robbery which happened at a KFC in Gastonia.
If you know anything about the robbery, call the Belmont Police Department at 704-825-3792.
The East Charlotte Area Patrol 