More than 100 people killed in Charlotte in 2024. Where they were & who was at risk
Debra Wilson has lived in the Montclaire South area of Charlotte for nearly 20 years. But she and her husband are moving this year, partly because of the increase in violence, she said.
There was a cluster of nine killings in southwest Charlotte near Montclaire South, which is bordered by Interstate 77 to the west and Old Pineville Road to the east.
The retired woman has heard gunshots for years, she said. But they’ve grown more common. “I don’t feel comfortable,” Wilson said.
Many people live near where people were killed in Charlotte in 2024, the vast majority by gunfire. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police reported 110 homicides — about 24% more than police reported in 2023. As of early January, they identified a suspect in nearly 75% of those cases, some within a day of the killing, data show.
The 110 total is more killings in a single year since the start of the pandemic in 2020, when the count was 118 homicides, data show. The final count could change if people succumb to injuries or if killings are found to be justified, police say.
Charlotte’s death toll looked particularly bad at the start of 2024. By the end of June, more people had been murdered in Charlotte in the first six months of 2024 than the first half of any year since 2015, according to a Charlotte Observer analysis of city data.
Many in Charlotte recall the April 29 fatal ambush of police officers that shocked the city, prompting a period of widespread mourning.
Terry Clark Hughes, Jr. killed four law enforcement officers after a U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force tried to serve an arrest warrant where he lived in east Charlotte.
Those killed included Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer Joshua Eyer; Thomas M. Weeks, Jr., a deputy U.S. Marshal; and William “Alden” Elliot and Sam Poloche, both officers with the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction. Hughes was killed by police.
But on Jan. 27, three people where shot and killed in south Charlotte, just west of South Boulevard. At the time, CMPD said the shooting started during a fight between two groups in a parking lot.
On March 17, the bodies of a mother and her two children were found in north Charlotte near Interstate 85 and North Tryon Street. A suspect, Benjamin Taylor, 34, was arrested in California and extradited to North Carolina.
Despite a summer lull in killings, 2024 ended deadly, too, with four homicides in two days — Dec. 29 and Dec. 30.
Familiar patterns to lives lost
As was the case in previous years, Charlotte’s homicide victims in 2024 were most often Black men. And nearly all known killings involved a firearm.
According to the 2024 CMPD homicide data:
▪ 65% of the people killed were Black, 20% were Hispanic and 12% were white.
▪ 80% of the victims were male.
▪ The average age of victims was 31 years old. The youngest was less than a year while the oldest was 82, according to available data.
▪ Arguments were the most cited reason for homicides in 2024, followed by domestic violence and drug-related incidents.
Where homicides happened
As was the case in previous years, nearly all killings occurred in or around what’s called the city’s crescent, a string of mostly lower-wealth neighborhoods that stretch from east to west just north of uptown.
About a dozen people were killed in neighborhoods along Interstate 85, north of uptown, records show.
Four more people were killed inside the Interstate 277 loop.
Wilson, the Montclaire South woman who retired from working at a paper manufacturer, said she feels so unsafe in her home that she stays away from windows, worried that she could be hit by a stray bullet.
“I used to feel okay walking the neighborhood,” she said. “But I don’t do that now. I stay on my street.”
This story was originally published January 6, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
