Crime & Courts

Parent threatened to shoot a gun before first bell at Charlotte elementary school

Oakdale Elementary was put on lockdown Wednesday morning after a parent threatened to shoot another parent’s car.
Oakdale Elementary was put on lockdown Wednesday morning after a parent threatened to shoot another parent’s car. Screenshot from Google Maps

A parent threatened to shoot a gun before Oakdale Elementary School rang its first bell, according to a Charlotte arrest affidavit.

Police say Shanique Williamson, 30, got into a parking-lot fight with another parent at 7:45 a.m. Wednesday morning — students’ third day back from summer — and threatened to shoot the parent’s car. She came back after 9 a.m. and told officers it was her second time bringing the gun to the northwest Charlotte K-5 school of about 450 students, according to court records.

Williamson let officers search her vehicle, where they found a black .45-caliber Glock 30 handgun behind her passenger seat. They charged her with two felony counts of bringing a gun onto a school campus.

According to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department report, which did not name a suspect, a person was arrested without incident and no students were involved. The report also said the fight didn’t happen on school property, but an arrest report said Williamson and the other parent were in the school’s parking lot.

In court Thursday, District Court Judge Fritz Mercer, Jr., set a $5,000 secured bond, according to entries on eCourts, Mecklenburg County Courthouse’s online system. A day earlier, court documents show that Magistrate April Phifer suggested a $10,000 bond.

Julia Coin
The Charlotte Observer
Julia Coin covers courts, legal issues, police and public safety around Charlotte and is part of the Pulitzer-finalist team that covered Tropical Storm Helene in North Carolina. As the Observer’s breaking news reporter, she unveiled how fentanyl infiltrated local schools. Michigan-born and Florida-raised, she studied journalism at the University of Florida, where she covered statewide legislation, sexual assault on campus and Hurricane Ian in her hometown of Sanibel Island. Support my work with a digital subscription
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