By Aaron Miller-
A white man from North Carolina has shot and killed a black man who he says was one of a number of others ”showing firearms”
Chad Copley, 39, called 911 early Sunday morning from his home in Raleigh, North Carolina. He demanded a police car come quickly and told the dispatcher he was “locked and loaded,” ready to confront a group of “hoodlums,” the Washington Post reported.
After the dispatcher asked Copley to elaborate, he stated:
“I’m on neighborhood watch,” he said. “I am going to have the neighborhood meet these hoodlums out here racing up and down the street. It’s 1 in the morning. There’s some devil in them. They have firearms and we’re going to secure our neighborhood. If I was you, I would send PD out here as quickly as possible.”
The police department did not have time to reach the scene. Just minutes later, Copley called back.
“I yelled at them, ‘Please leave the premises,’” he said. “They were showing firearms, so I fired a warning shot and uh, we got somebody that got hit.”
He continued, “I fired my warning shot like I’m supposed to by law… They do have firearms, and I’m trying to protect myself and my family.”
There is no ‘warning shot’ mentioned in North Carolina’s laws, though the state has a “Stand Your Ground” law, which permits homeowners to use force without retreating first. Copley simply said that the men were “showing firearms.”
The dispatcher tried to get more information, including where he was located, Copley told the dispatcher, “Please just send a car.”
“There’s friggin’ black males outside my friggin’ house with firearms. Please, send PD. Thank you,” he went on to say.
Before police turned up, 20-year-old Thomas was already dying. He was transported to WakeMed hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Copley has been arrested on first-degree murder charges and is being held without bail. Legal experts believe he will face the death penalty. The dispute which led to this killing was the consequence of a party in which neither of the two men were invited. The dead man and some of his friends alongside other random men waited outside for a mutual friend of theirs and the home owner of the residence where the party was taken place to permit them to join the party. However, while waiting, someone they knew told them, “Bro, it ain’t no girls.”
The friends decided that without girls, the party wasn’t worth it and decided to go home. What happened next that led to the shooting is speculation at the moment, besides the version given by Copler. A lot of party goers in North Carolina are known to attend parties with guns in their possession or their car, in case of situations like this. One fair point is that the fact the white assailant had called police first suggests he may have felt threatened by the presence of the black youths outside, but exactly why he felt the need to shoot and kill one of them remains unclear. He may have confronted them, before things got out of hand.
Though that possibility is weakened by the fact Copley was not killed himself. It seems more plausible that Copley shot and killed the man because he believed he alongside his friends posed a danger to the neighborhood. This concern itself cannot be a good reason for killing him,. He would need to provide some evidence that he acted as a means or protecting his safety and not just suspicion