Thanksgiving weekend turns deadlier in Charlotte with 2nd fatal shooting, cops say
A 46-year-old man found shot in an apartment complex parking lot became Charlotte’s second homicide victim over Thanksgiving weekend.
Independence Division officers found Reginald Lawrence with a gunshot wound about 10 p.m. Friday in the 5700 block of Pebblestone Drive, according to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department news release. Medic responders pronounced him dead at the scene.
On Saturday afternoon, police announced the arrest of 32-year-old Carlton Stevon Benbow in connection with Lawrence’s killing.
Benbow was jailed on charges of murder, assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill, possession of a stolen firearm and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, police said.
Pebblestone Drive is off Village Lake Drive, which connects Monroe Road and Independence Boulevard in east Charlotte.
SWAT officers responded after witnesses told the first officers to arrive that the shooter entered a nearby apartment, police said.
“Out of an abundance of caution, officers evacuated the other residents out of that building,” according to the CMPD release. “The SWAT Team responded and was able determine the suspect was not at that location.”
Police ask anyone with information to call CMPD at 704-432-8477 or Crime Stoppers at 704-334-1600.
Lawrence was the city’s 102nd homicide victim of 2019.
On Thanksgiving, 56-year-old Elvira Elizabeth Alexander was charged with second-degree murder and possession of a stolen fire arm in the shooting of her 37-year-old daughter, Chante Lavarche Alexander, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.
Alexander was shot in the 3300 block of Krupa Court, east of where Shamrock Drive and The Plaza intersect.
Police have yet to say if they know what prompted either shooting.
Also on Thanksgiving, a shooting victim was taken to Atrium Health’s Carolinas Medical Center with what police described as a life-threatening injury. Police have not updated the victim’s condition or released his name or age.
That victim was shot in the 1700 block of Pierson Drive, off North Sharon Amity Road and East Independence Boulevard.
Police arrested Nickolas Xavier Wright, 25, in connection with the shooting. Wright was identified as a suspect after an investigation. He was interviewed by homicide detectives and Wright was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill inflicting serious injury, police said.
This story was originally published November 30, 2019 at 10:45 AM.