JOE MARUSAK AND MELISSA MANWARE
Police said they shot and killed a gunman Thursday and critically injured his female passenger after the pair fired at officers in a Huntersville shopping center.
A trucker notified police about 1:50 p.m. that a blue van was weaving across lanes on southbound Interstate 77 in Mecklenburg County, Lt. Everett Clendenin of the State Highway Patrol said. An N.C. Highway Patrol trooper followed the van off Exit 23 into the Rosedale Commons shopping center, where Huntersville police joined in for backup.
Clendenin said the gunman and his passenger got out of their van in the shopping center parking lot, then ignored police warnings to lie on the ground and began firing at officers.
Officers returned fire, killing the driver on the sidewalk beside his van.
His passenger was in critical condition with gunshot wounds later Thursday at Presbyterian Hospital Huntersville across the street from the center. No officers or bystanders were injured.
Police had not released the names of the driver and his passenger late Thursday.
Police said one Highway Patrol trooper and six Huntersville officers have been placed on administrative leave, a usual practice when officers are involved in a shooting. The Highway Patrol asked the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation to investigate, also a standard procedure, Clendenin said.
“To have no officers or citizens hurt is remarkable, and it’s probably attributable to the training of the officers,” said Renee Hoffman, spokeswoman for the N.C. Governor’s Crime Commission.
The trucker who initially notified police about the van said it was causing other vehicles to swerve, Clendenin said. The van, which had temporary N.C. tags, stopped on the shoulder of I-77. The trucker stopped to check on the driver and saw he had a gun. The van then continued back onto the interstate, Clendenin said.
Huntersville police Capt. Michael Kee said the trucker told police that the van’s right rear tire was flat.
A trooper spotted the van on I-77 and followed it to Exit 23 in Huntersville. The trooper and Huntersville officers followed the van into Rosedale Commons, where the van’s driver and then his passenger got out and fired at the officers with a rifle and gun, police said.
The driver died near his van, on the sidewalk outside a BatteriesPlus store.
Owner Richard Rettammel said he saw the trooper order the man out of the van and to lie on the ground.
“He wouldn’t cooperate,” Rettammel said. “He ordered him over and over again. ... (The trooper) pulled out a gun and kneeled down by the door of his car. He kept screaming at the top of his lungs to lay down, to lay down, to lay down.”
Rettammel said he saw police approach the passenger side and order another person out of the van, before Rettammel decided to leave his building out the back door.
“I stood out behind the building, because I was afraid if they opened fire, the bullet would have come right through my store,” Rettammel said. “Then I heard gunshots. I heard at least 10 shots really fast.”
“It’s scary,” he said in a telephone interview less than an hour after the shooting. “I have a body right outside my door.”
Charlotte Observer (http://www.charlotte.com/)