Moments before dawn,
the day starts with morning, he said.
Someone just got killed.
Before a son even rises,
his father takes a final breath.
We now know the name of the
man shot near Northlake Mall
at 26 years old, rapper Junie.
So put the tenant to guilt becos
the latest victim of gun violen.
Shot twice outside his girlfries
apartment in north Charlotte,
CMPD eventually arrests a man for his murder.
Described as an extremely jealos
exboyfriend. 1 Teen dead parkint
argument just after 10:00 PM Bye
end of the first week of June 2,
at least two dozen others in the
Charlotte area will be shot to e
overwhelming majority black and brown men,
on average in their mid 20s.
Most will die.
Is a baby the youngest?
Just four months old? It hurts.
Another week, another set of candlelight
vigils for Mark Raley and mothes
of murdered offspring to plan.
It bothers me because it's so
normal right now we're just sayg
people lose it over the most.
The simplest arguments District
Attorney Spencer Merriweather says guns,
not reasoning, are the problem
solver of choice for desperate
young people who largely live in
neighborhoods overcome by pover.
Walk a minute in Chris Coltrane shoes though.
Let be alive and you might
find a path forward.
I'm on my own business.
The 27 year old has a totally
different perspective on life t.
I got injuries Here, there,
there, here, here. I got hit in
the stone like 8-8 times man.
But it took almost losing his.
I felt helpless to get here. Hopeless.
A man opened fire on an unarmed
Coltrane in 2021. Oh my God.
As he walked his three-year old
daughter back from a Charlotte ,
I got my daughter right here, she crying.
The shooting followed A disagreement.
Everything fought flashes through my head.
Coltrane had spent the prior year and a half
my mom kicked me out homeless.
This I was getting trouble too .
During his lengthy hospital sta,
a social worker connected Coltrane with
housing help, giving him stabil,
well a way to shed some of his t
and improve his chances of surv.
I didn't want to go back to the
same environment. I didn't want
to go back to the same situatio.
I take it very personally.
Dr. David Jacobs has young
African American sons of his ow.
Every time I get up in the middf
the night and get called to see.
Another patient.
I just keep saying to myself,
we're not doing enough.
He heads Atrium
Health's Emerging Violence
Intervention program, which
offers survivors immediate
help from within the hospital.
We need to saturate the communiy
with these kinds of programs,
with funding from the city of
Charlotte to Violence Intervent,
specialists evaluate willing gut
victims for critical social nee.
Are they homeless?
Do they need to get out of a ga?
Do they need a job? Then
they write a prescription to get
them on the road to recovery,
a teachable moment when they're.
Most vulnerable I'm optimistic s
night falls a year later at the
scene of June Eaton's killing.
I mean, where can you go
where it's not happening?
It's hard to be positive. Mr.
Butler, the man charged with his murder,
remains in jail.
The court system is so overwheld
by all of the violence,
coupled with the impacts of the pandemic,
murder trials are now
delayed up to six years.
Six years to get justice
is a terrible thing, The darkest
indictment. Before the dawn,
there is room for more optimism.
A new Urban Institute study foud
another city program,
still in its early stages,
has helped reduce murders involving guns
along the Beatty's Ford Rd. corridor.
It's called Alternatives to violence,
and it relies on people with tio
the community to act as mediatos
to interrupt violence in real t.
Nate Morbito, WCNC, Charlotte.