CMPD said it ‘immediately’ rendered aid after shooting. Video shows otherwise
Content warning: Videos in this story contain violence and graphic language.
Monotone police commands pummeled Demetrics McGill’s ears. They were still ringing from the sound of 25 shots firing toward her house and son.
“Rico, we know you’re inside. You need to exit the house with your empty hands held high,” an officer repeated into a loudspeaker.
A dead man can’t walk, Demetrics McGill thought. How can he come out?
In part one of this series, The Charlotte Observer shared footage and accounts of the Dec. 16, 2023, police shooting of Sanrico McGill — which Mecklenburg District Attorney Spencer Merriweather last year deemed legally justified.
McGill’s mother told the Observer she was waiting for police to serve involuntary commitment paperwork when officers responded to a shots fired call. When they arrived, police ignored 21 pleas from the shocked family asking officers to put their guns down.
But McGill had a gun, too, and officers shot at him 25 times — hitting him twice.
Police on the day of the shooting told the public they then entered his home, found him with gunshot wounds and “immediately began rendering aid.”
Video tells a different story.
An officer with a drone rolled in, and police talked about how “cool” the gadget was, body-camera footage shows. About 30 minutes passed before the drone buzzed into the home and confirmed what neighbors and family had been repeating over and over: McGill was down and in need of help.
By the time police reached him, McGill was still. The first officer to touch McGill did not aid him. He placed a thumb to McGill’s wrist and shook his head “no” when another officer asked if he felt a pulse.
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CMPD declined multiple interview requests for this story. A retired Charlotte sergeant with nearly 30 years of experience reviewing officer-involved shootings said she thought police handled the situation well. The drone protected officers’ lives by letting them first determine remotely that it was safe for them to enter, she said.
But how CMPD uses drones remains mostly a mystery to the public. Drone protocols are not outlined in policies published on the department’s website. The Observer requested CMPD’s policies on Oct. 20 and is awaiting a response.
A review of more than 440 police body-camera videos pulls back the curtain on operations CMPD has made opaque.
‘He’s dead… they know that’
Immediately after the shooting, police kept their guns pointed on the house and asked Cordario McGill — one of McGill’s two brothers — a list of questions.
He answered with eyes still glazed by the shock of seeing his brother shot feet in front of him.
No, nobody else is in the house, he told police. No, the family’s duplex apartments weren’t connected. Yes, McGill had a back door.
Then he had a question for the officers.
“Why I don’t hear no ambulance?” he asked. “Y’all shot my damn brother!”
Police didn’t answer, video shows. When he continued to ask with a raised voice, they detained him.
Nearby, some officers were captured on video telling each other they believed McGill “retreated” and was “on his feet.” They said they didn’t know if he was “still armed in there or what the situation was.” They sent rifle officers to take aim at the side and back of the duplex.
McGill’s mother — a 57-year-old who has rented the Lincoln Heights duplex for 10 years — and her neighbors, insisted that wasn’t the case.
“He’s laying down,” a neighbor atop a stoop said. “He’s down! The man is down!”
“Do you want to put this uniform (on) and do my job?” one officer replied. “We have to protect ourselves as well.”
“He’s dead on the floor! They know that,” said Demetrics McGill, her words captured by police body camera video. “They killed my son!”
No breakfast before police shooting
Family continued to insist McGill was down and in need of help for more than 20 minutes as an officer with a drone arrived, set up a “makeshift command center” and prepared to launch the device.
Other officers down the road nonchalantly mingled and lingered. Some were not involved in the shooting and apparently were not as concerned by a potential active shooter as their colleagues.
“If they really shot him, he’s probably in there bleeding out,” one officer said.
“They’re putting a drone in there?” another officer asked. “Heck yeah. That’s cool.”
One said the drone would be faster than getting SWAT out to the scene, which he estimated would take about an hour.
“He’s going to clear that whole house with that thing,” the officer said, joking that it “probably has a little pistol on it” while holding up a finger gun and making a shooting noise.
Officers continued to jovially make fun of others who forgot their coats in the freezing weather. They sipped out of their QT coffee cups and talked about how they hadn’t even had breakfast yet.
Meanwhile, almost two liters of blood pocketed inside McGill.
“Yo,” one officer said, pointing to a sign for Erie Street, “This is an eerie street — ha ha ha. I got jokes.”
And at one point, an officer approached a group of more than half a dozen officers standing in a circle.
“Hey, we’ve got a lot of people standing right here. We could all get shot,” he said.
“Good situational awareness,” an official responded, his tone sarcastic.
The officer responded with a smile and a “thank you” and high-fived the man who gave him props.
The group of officers did not move.
‘Does he have a pulse?’
By the time the drone reached McGill, he wasn’t moving.
“He’s on the floor (of the) living room, face down,” the officer operating the device said with drone goggles strapped to his eyes. “No shirt... I don’t see a gun. No movement.”
After he remotely searched the two-bedroom apartment, he gave officers the OK to enter.
One officer spit out his tobacco juice as he and others prepared to trot, rifles in hand, up McGill’s steps. They walked by McGill’s lifeless body and checked every room, cupboard, and closet — and later even the fridge and oven — for potential danger.
“I’ve seen it before,” one officer said to his colleagues.
When all was clear, an officer asked the one who stayed with McGill if he had a pulse.
The officer shook his head left to right.
Only then did police call paramedics into the house.
Outside, family wailed when officials confirmed what they already knew but wished wouldn’t be true.
As the sun came up that Saturday morning, tensions grew as the number of police and mourning family members multiplied.
Part Three coming Friday: Experts, officials and Sanrico McGill’s family reflect on the fatal police shooting that could have been a routine mental health check.
Police videos
This story was originally published November 13, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
