In Raleigh Neighborhood, North Carolina, the residents woke up to the sounds of gunshots which led to the death of five people, including a police officer.
Multiple officers appeared to be searching a house on Castle Pines Drive, a few blocks from the river.
Police tape stretched across the small lane. After a massive manhunt, a single police car blocked a house in the corner of a bend as neighbors walked past, the gunshots had stopped but a thousand questions remaining.
The Raleigh Neighborhood is a small town and its residents look out for each other. When they heard the gunshots, they started texting each other to stay indoors.
Many recognized an off-duty officer who lived in the house on the bend, seeing him get out of his car in uniform. The officer was one of the shooting victims.
Holmes, a resident of the Raleigh neighborhood only had good things to say about the officer.
“He petted my dog,” he said.
”I know exactly where he was killing people,” Holmes said. “I walk my pitbull right there. I see regulars. My dog knows dogs on that trail. There’s dads every quarter mile. But, well, if there’s a kid with a gun, he’s got a killing field.”
Nyeshia Royal, 38, a stay-at-home mother of two, said she provided refuge in her home for four or five additional elementary school-aged neighborhood kids who were running from the shooting.
“He has a gun!” she said they were screaming. “‘I’m thinking it’s a BB gun. A water gun.’ Then I said, ‘Get in the house!’
“Their parents couldn’t get back into the neighborhood. It traumatized the kids. They were crying the whole time.”
The street is always swarming with kids in the late afternoon and early evening, Royal said. “You know you can let them out and be OK.
