Durham’s elected officials, law enforcement leaders, activists, and others have deployed an array of resources that aims to stop gun violence.
The past weekend was disheartening.
Police say 11 people were shot and four died between Thursday afternoon and Saturday night.
According to police statistics, the city’s violent death toll so far this year is outpacing last year’s record number of 50 homicides.
“According to our Crime Analysis Unit, through April 9 of this year, there have been 14 criminal homicides from 11 cases, one of which was an officer-involved shooting still under investigation,” police spokeswoman Kammie Michael told the INDY on Tuesday. “During the same period last year, there were 9 criminal homicides and 1 negligent manslaughter—10 total.”
The gunfire started Thursday at about 4:30 p.m., in the 300 block of Avon Lake Drive.
Police found two people with gunshot wounds at an apartment complex in the neighborhood.
Investigators say Emily Montes de Oca, 22, of Durham, died at the scene. Paramedics also rushed a 27-year-old victim to the hospital with serious injuries.
Nearly two hours after the shootings police announced that the incident was “ongoing,” and remained “an active situation” because the shooting suspect, Erick Ray Hudson of Durham had “barricaded himself inside one of the apartments and refused to come out for several hours,” police reported.
Durham Police Chief, during a late afternoon press conference that took place near the apartments where Hudson was still barricaded, said there had been previous reports of gunshots fired in the community.
According to WRAL News, Hudson and the slain woman were roommates.
It was about 10:30 p.m. when members of the police department’s selective enforcement team made their way into the apartment and took Hudson into custody.
Police have charged Hudson, 26, with one felony count each of murder and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury.
Two days later police were alerted to a second shooting at South Durham’s Avon Lake Drive.
It was about 1:30 a.m. on Saturday when police were dispatched to the 3000 block of the neighborhood. When investigators arrived they found three people wounded by gunfire. One of the victims was pronounced dead at the scene.
Paramedics rushed the surviving victims to the hospital where they were treated for non-life threatening injuries.
A little over three miles away in the 3000 block of Auto Drive in South Durham, police were dispatched to another shooting that happened just after 1:30 a.m.
When the officers arrived, they were told three people had been shot. Police on Monday said one victim, Daniel Slack, 22 died at the scene. The other two people were transported to a local hospital with what appear to be non-life threatening injuries.
Again, investigators did not make public details about the shooting, or report a motive. However, they think the shootings were not random.
The gun violence in continued into the early evening when dispatchers alerted police to another fatal shooting on West Woodcroft Parkway.
It was shortly after 7:30 p.m. when Durham officers arrived at the 100 block of West Woodcroft Parkway and found three gunshot victims.
Police on Monday said one victim, Tylen Wesley Baldwin, 21, of Durham, died at the scene. The other two victims were taken to the hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.
Police have not filed any charges in the deaths of Baldwin, Slack or the third, unnamed victim.
Correction: This story, including the headline, has been updated to reflect that the shootings took place in South Durham, not West Durham as originally reported.
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Follow Durham Staff Writer Thomasi McDonald on Twitter or send an email to tmcdonald@indyweek.com.