‘A cool dude’: Man shot, killed on I-85 remembered fondly by a close friend
Carleton Cartier was driving on Interstate 85 last Saturday in Charlotte so he could be early for his 7 p.m. haircut appointment.
“Carleton was always ahead of time, he always got there early,” Oscar Dill, one of his closest friends, told the Observer on Thursday.
But just before 6 p.m., the 58-year-old Cartier was shot and killed in the southbound lanes of I-85 near Statesville Avenue, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said.
“He was like a brother to me,” Dill said. “We basically talked every day whether it was verbally or through some type of text. I still can’t believe it.”
Police have charged Kevin Jordan, 24, with first- and second-degree murder in the case, CMPD Lt. Bryan Crumb said during a news conference Thursday.
Crum attributed Cartier’s death to road rage, which he said is rare and difficult to solve because there usually isn’t relationship between the drivers that police can use for leads.
Cartier and Jordan did not know each other, police said, and it’s not known what led to the shooting.
Other drivers at the scene helped police identify a suspect during their investigation. “This is essentially two people passing on the interstate, it spirals out of control and results in a murder,” Crum said. “So the support from the community was tremendous in helping us to solve that.”
‘He wasn’t that type of guy’
One person who does know Cartier is Dill, who said his friend of over seven years was a “cool dude.”
“He was single, had no kids, worked a 9-to-5, was really into building computers, liked to dance, was into sports and he was like an uncle to my three children,” Dill said.
Dill said Cartier would even video his children’s sporting events and dog-sit when his family went out of town. “He was real and wasn’t hard to find,” Dill said. “I could count on him for anything.”
Dill had just moved from Pennsylvania and met Cartier through a mutual friend.
“He was the first friend I met here, and we’ve been kicking it ever since,” Dill said. “That’s the hard part about this, I don’t have him here anymore.”
Dill said he spoke with Cartier on the phone around 2 p.m. Saturday. When he learned of his friend’s death hours later, he said what hurt him the most is that Cartier had no idea someone was “going to roll up beside him and start spraying like that.”
Cartier said the way his friend died will always hurt him because he didn’t know him as a confrontational person. “That just messed me up, he wasn’t that type of guy,” he said.
Dill, 49, said Cartier “was always dropping gems” about life.
One thing Cartier used to tell Dill is that “he didn’t want him holding his head down.” So, in honor of his friend, Dill said he’s going to push forward.
Dill’s son’s birthday was on Saturday, so he said his family will also remember Cartier on that day.
‘Everybody gets upset’
Cartier originally was from New York, and he’s survived by his three sisters and mother, Dill said. His death comes a year after he lost his father, his friend said.
The situation is sad for Cartier’s and Jordan’s family because one person is dead and the other is behind bars, Dill said.
“Everybody gets upset, adrenaline is flowing. But when it’s all over and the smoke clears, you come back,” Dill said.
Crum didn’t go into specifics about Jordan’s statement to police, but said he thinks the suspect wishes “that this hadn’t gotten to where it got to.”
Road rage investigations
On April 21, CMPD said it had investigated more than 40 criminal cases involving road rage this year.
Nearly half of these cases escalated to the point where a gun was drawn, and many began due only to minor accidental driving errors. Ten arrests were made in these cases, police said.
“Everything we’re dealing with in this pandemic and having to worry about health, and then the next thing you know, you got worry about getting murdered on the highway,” Dill said. “We lost two Black lives.”
Dill and the Cartier family are asking the public to donate toward their loved one’s funeral expenses.
