Background: The 6500 block of Woodfield Drive in Charlotte, North Carolina, where law enforcement reportedly found the victim (Google Maps). Inset: James Raeford (Mecklenburg County Sheriff”s Office).
A man is accused of shooting at a van and striking a toddler with one of the bullets because the kid’s father “parked too close to his vehicle.”
James Raeford, 39, faces charges including assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill — inflicting serious injury, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, and six counts of discharging a weapon into an occupied property. It all transpired on Sunday evening in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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Around 8 p.m., a man was driving his white GMC Savana work van in an apartment complex in the 5700 block of Sloping Oaks Road. With his 3-year-old son in the front passenger seat, the man “backed his van into a parking spot,” according to a criminal affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime.
Suddenly, he saw a man “who he did not know start shooting at his vehicle for an unknown reason,” the court document states. Raeford is believed to have fired at least six bullets, with one of them hitting the child in his back.
The father “drove fast” out of the complex to the 6500 block of Woodfield Drive about 10 minutes away, and called 911. It was there that Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office deputies met up with them and learned more details.
The son was transported to a hospital, and as of Monday, was “expected to survive.”
A witness told investigators that she was inside her apartment when she heard four or five gunshots. She said she saw a man yelling and heard him say, “I’m going up to get me another clip,” per the affidavit. She described this man as having “braid[s] or dreads about 4-5 inches long,” wearing dark clothes, and having a “green beam that could possibly be a scope on the gun.” He then walked upstairs, entered a third-floor apartment, and left.
Officers say they went to the specified apartment and spoke with a woman there. She told them she was at work when her boyfriend, Raeford, “called her stating that he was involved in an altercation in the parking lot where someone in a white van parked too close to his vehicle.”
The woman added that her boyfriend said “the person in the white van attempted to run him over,” but he made no mention of having fired his weapon. The sheriff’s office said its officers were subsequently allowed to search the apartment “and located a black 9mm magazine that was empty.”
Raeford is said to have approached officers outside a magistrate’s office in the city about 15 minutes away “and stated he was involved in a shooting on Sloping Oaks Rd.” He was then arrested, and he gave his version of events.
The suspect said he recently bought a mid-2000s Infiniti Q50 and had backed it into a parking spot. The white van came along and backed into the parking spot next to his car, “leaving only 4-5 inches of room,” he said, and he “would not be able to enter his vehicle.”
Raeford said he tried to tell the van’s driver multiple times to move the vehicle but the man “would not reply.” Then, according to Raeford, the man “put his vehicle in drive and drove in his direction” — and he thought the man “was attempting to run him over and that was why he shot.”
The suspect went on, saying “he was aiming for the driver seat but shot toward the front passenger seat.” Afterward, he drove off to his parent’s home because he was afraid of possible “retaliation,” and he “hid his black Taurus G3 9mm with a green laser on it inside his father[‘]s golf bag inside the garage.” Officers later recovered the gun.
The white van was then searched. Six bullet holes were located — with one “found entering through the back of the front passenger seat where it traveled into the lower back” of the child, the affidavit states. It then adds:
“The trajectory of the bullets are consistent with Raeford shooting his firearm as the van passed his location and the last bullet hole is consistent with Raeford shooting the van as it was completely past where he was standing.”
Court records show Raeford had a first appearance in court on Tuesday. He is being held on a $500,000 secured bond and is next expected in court on Nov. 5.
