Black Lives Matter
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Mother Files Wrongful Death Suit in Gastonia Police Shooting
The mother of a 21-year-old who was shot and killed by Gastonia police in 2022 has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Gastonia and three officers who were involved in the death of her son. In the 80-page complaint citing the Monell Doctrine, Thelma Mackins alleges Gastonia Police…
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Family Sues CMPD for Wrongful Death in Custody
The family of a man who died while restrained by CMPD officers in 2022 filed a wrongful death suit against the city and four officers with the department on the three-year anniversary of his death. Jovontay Williams was tackled to the ground, handcuffed and placed prone while an officer held…
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Pineville PD Releases Footage of Dennis Bodden Police Killing
In response to petitions from Dennis Bodden’s mother and the Charlotte Observer, the Pineville Police Department on Saturday released body-worn camera footage of an incident that ended with an off-duty Pineville PD sergeant shooting and killing Bodden in an apartment complex parking lot in May. The incident began when Pineville…
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Officers Won’t Face Charges in Police Killing of Sanrico McGill
Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather concluded his office’s review of a police shooting that killed Sanrico McGill at his home on Catherine Simmons Avenue in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of north Charlotte last year. In a 13–page statement letter released on Tuesday, Merriweather announced that no charges will be…
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New Alternatives to Violence Team Launches on West Boulevard
Following signs of success from the city’s first Alternatives to Violence program on Beatties Ford Road, the city of Charlotte has officially rolled out its second team of violence interrupters, this time along the West Boulevard corridor. Its goal is to minimize gun violence in the area by offering alternative…
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ESSAY: How California Taught Me the Truth About Racism in the South
When I was 17 years old, my mother packed up a few belongings into my uncle’s Suburban and loaded me, my brother and sister into the car to drive the eight or so hours from upstate South Carolina to Washington, D.C. Having grown up a military brat, I’d spent my…
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Body-Cam Footage Released, Officer Suspended for CMPD Arrest
CMPD on Tuesday announced the results of an internal investigation into the violent arrest of Christina Pierre and her husband Anthony Lee outside of a Bojangles where they both work on South Tryon Street on Nov. 13, stating that CMPD Internal Affairs had ruled that one officer would be…
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CMPD Officers Filmed Striking Restrained Woman During Arrest
Community members are calling for answers after CMPD officers were caught on video striking a Black woman before arresting her outside of a Bojangles on South Tryon Street Monday. The incident reportedly began when the police approached the woman and a man after seeing them smoking marijuana. According to eyewitness…
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Gaston County Teen Faces Attempted Murder Charge for 2021 Tangle with Police
The family of Gastonia teenager La’Dainian Fuller and advocates with Emancipate NC are calling on Gaston County District Attorney Travis Page to drop attempted murder charges against Fuller in connection with a 2021 incident in which Fuller allegedly put a police officer in a headlock as the officer attacked his…
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Family of Danquirs Franklin Reaches Settlement with City
Four family members of Danquirs Franklin, who was shot and killed by CMPD officer Wende Kerl in the parking lot of a Burger King on Beatties Ford Road in 2019, gathered at a law office in South End on Thursday to announce that they have agreed to a $1.5-million settlement…
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NC Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green Teaches Curating Your Own Past
People revere museums and exhibits because of the history and knowledge surrounding them and the way those institutions captivate them, but few people realize that they can house their own museums. North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green hopes to change that. “If we walk through our homes, all our…
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Lorenzo Steele Jr. Takes Kids Behind Prison Walls with a Camera
When Lorenzo Steele Jr. was 5 years old, his mother put a camera in his hands for the first time. “I can still remember the feeling of it in my hands. It felt like something that was taken away for many years and it was found again. Staring at it…
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Charlotte Hosts Three Maud 2.23 Events Honoring Ahmaud Arbery
Feb. 23 marks the third anniversary of the racially motivated murder of Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old Black man who was hunted down, shot and killed by three white men in Glynn County, Georgia, in 2020, while he was jogging. While all three men have since been convicted of hate crimes…
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Family of Mount Holly’s Ransom Hunter Fights to Preserve Legacy
As a boy growing up in Mount Holly in the 1960s, Eric Wilson knew firsthand that each thundercloud had a silver lining. His grandmother, Mena Hunter Wilson, wasn’t fond of storms, so she would call down to Eric’s parents whenever one began to roll in. “She would always call my…
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PHOTOS: Charlotte Responds to Police Killing of Tyre Nichols
Protesters took to the streets of Charlotte over the weekend after the Memphis Police Department released footage on Friday of five police officers brutally beating 29-year-old Tyre Nichols on Jan. 7. He died in the hospital three days later. More than 75 people gathered in front of the Mecklenburg County…
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Potions & Pixels Workforce Development Program Wraps in Grier Heights
Standing in front of a table display featuring light fixtures and wiring in the Billingsville Elementary School gym in southeast Charlotte’s Grier Heights neighborhood on a December night, 24-year-old Tiaunjalae “Tee” Chancley beamed as she showed what she had learned during a 13-week workforce development program that had just wrapped…
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