‘Worst day of my life.’ CMPD video recounts killings of 4 officers on Galway Drive
April 29, 2024, started as “a beautiful day,” Charlotte-Mecklenburg police Sgt. Chad Shingler recalls in a CMPD video released Saturday to remember four fellow officers killed by a shooter on Galway Drive that day.
“The sun was out,” Shingler said. “It was a typical Carolina day. Blue skies.”
Shingler, a member of the U.S. Marshals Service Carolinas Regional Fugitive Task Force, said the tragedy that unfolded made it tough, a year after the killings, “for cops, for me, to sit here before you and have a conversation with you about the worst day in my life.”
Tuesday marks a year since the fatal shootings of CMPD Officer Joshua Eyer, Deputy U.S. Marshal Thomas Weeks Jr. and N.C. Department of Adult Correction Investigators William Elliott and Samuel Poloche.
Police unveiled efforts to honor the officers’ legacies, including the “One Year Later: Remembering the Fallen” documentary. On Sunday, the public joined at the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’s 8th annual Charlotte Climb at Bank of America Stadium.
Sunday’s benefit provided financial support to the officers’ families and the family of CMPD Officer Mia Goodwin, who was killed in an accident in 2021. The annual benefit also provides mortgage-free homes to the families of fallen first responders.
“No singular act can fully honor such profound loss,” CMPD Chief Johnny Jennings said in a statement. “Instead, we have deliberately chosen multiple avenues to solemnly remember these fallen officers, to vibrantly celebrate their lives, to unite as a community in heartfelt tribute and to demonstrate the enduring strength that has defined us since that devastating day.”
CMPD tribute video includes 29 interviews
The video serves as a cornerstone of the tribute, according to a CMPD statement. The hour-and-11-minute video can be viewed on CMPD’s YouTube channel.
Produced by CMPD’s Public Affairs Division, the video includes 29 interviews in which officers recount the day of the shootings and the community efforts since to support them.
CMPD arranged private, internal observances and officer recognitions, and, through Wednesday, officer mental health and wellness consultations.
In the video, Shingler says his job was to call for more help, if needed, on Galway Drive.
He was on Galway Drive when an undercover officer reported on police radio that the suspect was leaving a house.
“Galway Drive is a very long street, and there wasn’t a car on the street,” Shingler says in the video. Suddenly, 15 police cars arrived, prompting the suspect to run back inside the home, Shingler said.
“We shut the road down for the safety of the community,” Shingler said.
He then heard “a pop. Was that a gunshot? Are they shooting at me?”
“I knew that I needed to get on the radio and let everybody know that shots were being fired at us.”
“38 minutes of hell”
On the radio of a fellow deputy U.S. marshal, Shingler said, he heard that “an officer was down, and I got on the radio and said, ‘headquarters, I got shots fired, and I got an officer down.’ And from that point, it was pandemonium and chaos.”
Shingler is a combat veteran who served in Iraq. He’s been shot at, he said.
“Those engagements are over very, very quickly,” he said. The Galway Drive shooting “was the longest battle that I’ve ever been a part of,” he said. “It was 38 minutes of hell. And it was the worst day of my life, hands down.”
This story was originally published April 29, 2025 at 5:00 AM.