Inset left: Carlos Uribe (Catawba County District Attorney’s Office). Inset right: Camden Childers (Obituary). Background: Uribe shooting Childers after a high-speed chase (Newton Police Department).
A former member of law enforcement in North Carolina will spend several years behind bars for killing a man during a high-speed chase well after the suspect-turned-victim had been incapacitated.
In June, Carlos Alverto Uribe, 29, pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree murder for the killing of 21-year-old Camden Childers in late June 2025.
This week, the defendant, a onetime Newton Police Department lieutenant, was sentenced to eight to 10 years in Tar Heel State prison by Henderson County Superior Court Judge Athena F. Brooks.
“This was a difficult and deeply troubling case,” Catawba County District Attorney Scott Reilly said in a press release. “Although the victim fled from law enforcement, that conduct did not justify the use of deadly force or diminish the value of the victim’s life.”
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The underlying incidents occurred late on the night of June 26, 2025, and into the next morning — and ended with a violent climax after a traffic stop went awry and led to a series of high-speed chases.
Just minutes before midnight, Childers, on a motorcycle, was traveling along U.S. Highway 70 when police aimed to pull the rider over for various violations, including failure to display a registration plate, speeding, and reckless driving, prosecutors said during a July 2025 hearing.
But Childers did not stop riding. Efforts to have the man pull over were halted and reconvened — repeatedly.
In sum, three separate chases occurred that night. Then, finally, on a cul-de-sac on Northern Drive NW in Conover, roughly 45 miles northwest of Charlotte, the motorcycle collided with a patrol vehicle.
By that point, prosecutors said, the elusive rider posed little, if any, threat to the officers at the scene, according to a courtroom report by Belmont, North Carolina-based Fox affiliate WJZY.
After the crash, “a brief physical altercation” occurred in which Childers was shot once in the chest, authorities said. Paramedics performed lifesaving efforts and he was taken to the Catawba Valley Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival.
During a hearing in 2025, prosecutors said Childers first raised his hands in response to the command of an officer who was not Uribe. The defendant then kicked the victim in the abdomen, knocked him down, and fired a single bullet into his chest, evidence showed.
All the while, prosecutors said, Childers’ hands were raised in the air as police had requested — and they were empty.
“That’s what you get for going for an officer’s gun,” Uribe allegedly said at the scene of the shooting.
Again, however, prosecutors disputed the since-convicted former lieutenant’s narrative. The state argued body-worn camera footage did not support the notion that Childers ever reached for anyone’s gun.
In that footage, Uribe tells Childers to get on the ground, walks forward, kicks Childers in the stomach, then fires into his left chest.
“I’m sorry!” Childers exclaimed. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! He shot me! He shot me! He shot me! He shot me!”
At the time charges were filed against Uribe, the district attorney said he had reviewed 15 incidents in which police officers in situations similar to Uribe’s fired their guns. Each of those other times, the prosecutor found such uses of force to be legally justified.
“However, when the line is crossed — when excessive or unlawful force results in a loss of life — my obligation is to the law and to justice,” Reilly told Charlotte-based NBC affiliate WCNC. “That duty requires accountability, regardless of profession or position.”
After the guilty plea earlier this summer, defense attorneys sought leniency.
During the two-day sentencing hearing, the defense offered testimony from several expert witnesses “in an attempt to prove extraordinary mitigation, which could have permitted a sentence other than active imprisonment,” the district attorney’s office said.
In response, the state “countered” by showing the body-worn camera footage from that night as well as reiterating Uribe’s own statements made to agents from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (NCSBI), according to the press release announcing the sentence.
“Our office strongly opposed the defense’s request for extraordinary mitigation, and we agree with the Court’s decision that an active prison sentence was required,” Reilly said. “We respect the Court’s decision and the rule of law.”
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