Sleeping toddler killed after 150 rounds fired into North Carolina home

Published 6:42 pm Sunday, September 12, 2021

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Gunmen unloaded 150 rounds into a Charlotte home, killing a sleeping 3-year-old boy who became the latest victim of a deadly string of shootings that police on Wednesday said are tied to “simple disputes” between students at local high schools.

Asiah Figueroa was killed and his 4-year-old sister wounded when people in multiple vehicles opened fire on a house in Charlotte late Tuesday night, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said. His sister is expected to survive.

Surveillance video released by police shows two cars pulling up at the home and people stepping out to fire at the home continuously for at least 12 seconds before taking off. Responding officers found Asiah with a gunshot wound and he was pronounced dead at a hospital.

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Asiah was sleeping in his bed when the shots rang out, Capt. Joel McNelly said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

“This should outrage everyone who hears this,” McNelly said.

It’s the latest in a series of shootings targeting homes in the area that began last Saturday with a shooting that killed one teen and wounded two others, McNelly said. Authorities have not named any suspects but believe the attacks are connected to high school feuds.

“What started out as teenage dispute games has turned into a deadly game that’s now taken two lives,” McNelly said.

McNelly called on the community to help identify the shooters and specifically called on parents of students at the high schools to help.

‘What we need is for you to be as outraged about this as we are,” he said.

McNelly asked parents to talk to their children, consider whether they have been home the last few nights and look through their belongings and social media accounts.

Asiah and other relatives were staying with his great-grandmother Susie Whitley, who told WBTV-TV that she was about to go to sleep when the gunfire started. Her granddaughter was screaming and yelling that Asiah had been shot as she tried to dial 911.

“They just shot up the house and killed my great-grandson,” Whitley  told WSOC-TV. “They tried to kill everybody up here, I do believe.”

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