On Beatties Ford Road, there was music and dancing — then a ‘whole lot of gunshots’
Timothy Moore was standing along Beatties Ford Road with his cousin — 28-year-old Christopher “CJ” Gleaton — when the first shots rang out.
“Everybody was shooting this way, that way,” Moore told The Observer Tuesday. “Bullets were going different directions.”
Moore said he began running across a parking lot for cover, then looked back to make sure Gleaton was OK.
He wasn’t. He’d been shot. Gleaton, an easygoing father of six, was among four people who were killed in a hail of gunfire after a street party turned violent in northwest Charlotte early Monday.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department identified the other victims as 31-year-old Dairyon Dejean Stevenson, 29-year-old Kelly Miller and 39-year-old Jamaa Keon Cassell.
At least 11 other people were injured, some by gunshot and some after being hit by cars, police said.
Several people who witnessed the mayhem say that Beatties Ford Road resembled a battlefield that night, as hundreds of shots were fired from multiple guns.
Earlier that night, the party had been peaceful, according to several who were there. The area had served as a gathering spot throughout the weekend.
Some people listened to music and danced. Others lit fireworks. A crowd watched as some raced their cars on Beatties Ford Road and did donuts in the street.
“Everybody was celebrating,” Jerquitla Funderburk said. “Everybody was getting along. There was no arguing. There was no confusion.”
But shortly after midnight, an ambulance was called after a pedestrian was hit by a vehicle on Beatties Ford Road, according to CMPD. Bystander videos on social media show an ambulance rolling slowly toward an intersection, just as gunfire is heard in the background.
Funderburk said shots erupted from a black car and a gray car that drove past the ambulance. She remembers the sound of rapid gunfire.
“There was no reloading,” she said. “For 15 to 20 seconds, it was just going off.”
Hundreds of people were gathered along Beatties Ford Road that night, mostly between Lasalle Street and Dr. Webber Avenue, for what police officials have described as an “impromptu” block party. Organizers of a Juneteenth celebration that happened nearby but ended hours earlier have said their event was not affiliated with the gathering later in the night.
Prior to the shooting Monday morning, a crowd formed as cars drove past, many doing burnouts. While responding to the call about the pedestrian who had been hit, police officers heard gunshots.
Police believe multiple people may have fired guns, according to a news statement Monday.
As of late Tuesday, no arrests had been made and officials with CMPD’s Crime Stoppers say they’re hoping witnesses will come forward with information about the shooting. CMPD did not confirm whether a fourth person injured in the shooting has died.
‘It was chaos’
Anthony Stewart said he was talking with friends in front of an apartment near Beatties Ford Road when he heard an ambulance approach.
Soon afterward, he heard shooting: “Not just gunshots, a whole lot of gunshots,” he said.
Stewart grabbed his pit bull, Diamond, and lay down with her to stop her from running toward the noise. From where he was, he couldn’t see the shooters, but he could see the smoke from the guns.
Once the shooting stopped, he took Diamond and headed for his home on Custer Street. People were running across streets and cars were “flying” past, he said.
“All I know is that it was chaos,” Stewart said.
Earlier, Stewart said, something made him call his wife to make sure his son, who is in his 30s, was not coming to the event, even though he didn’t know why. “I felt something,” he said.
Big guns and little guns
Moore, who lives in Miami and had been visiting family members, said a bullet grazed his calf as he ran from the gunfire.
“You had big guns, you had little guns,” he said. “I don’t know how many people were shooting. I was trying to get cover, trying to make sure I wasn’t hit.”
“I thank God I’m still here,” he said. “I could have died. I thank God I made it out of the jungle.”
Moore said he put his arms around Gleaton after he was shot, anxiously waiting for paramedics to arrive.
Now Moore is mourning multiple losses. Kelly Mills, another one of the victims, was also his cousin.
“It hurts so bad, I don’t know what to do right now,” he said.
‘He rapped about the truth’
On Tuesday, two family members came to the spot where Gleaton had been killed.
They said he was a musician, an up-and-coming rapper who went by the name “Hi-Cee.” He loved to rap about life along the Beatties Ford Road corridor, they said.
“He rapped about little kids on Beatties Ford Road wanting to grow up to be drug dealers,” said Michael House, his uncle. “... He said he wanted to make it big so he could take care of everybody.”
“He rapped about the truth,” said his grandmother, Linda House.
But he loved his young children even more than his music, they said.
“His life really revolved around his kids,” Linda House said. “... How do you explain to kids when they ask, ‘Where is Daddy?’”
This story was originally published June 23, 2020 at 6:27 PM with the headline "On Beatties Ford Road, there was music and dancing — then a ‘whole lot of gunshots’."
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