Family questions shooting of Wake man

RALEIGH -- The family of a man who was shot and killed by a Wake County sheriff's deputy inside a Northwest Raleigh home Saturday morning said he had called 911 looking for help and that deputies should have taken steps to avoid a confrontation.

Instead, when Adam Wade Carter met Deputy Tavares Thompson with a paring knife in his hand, Thompson shot him twice in the chest.

Carter later died at Wake Med in Raleigh.

Thompson, who has been on the sheriff's force since March 2007, is on administrative duty, standard procedure pending an investigation by the State Bureau of Investigation of an officer-involved shooting.

Carter's family and friends were at his aunt's home on Langwood Drive on Monday. They described him as "a lost soul" who suffered a brain injury when he was struck by a car at the age of 10.

They said Carter, despite drinking problems that began during his teen years, was an accomplished guitarist who wrote songs. They said tall, gangly Carter was sweet, but also a fiercely combative person who often joked: "Don't bring your nose to a fistfight."

They feel hurt, angry and stunned by the actions taken by the deputy.

"If you want to commit suicide in Raleigh, call 911," Carter's father, Burl Carter, said on Monday.

"If your child is in trouble and crying for help, don't call the police because they will kill your child," said Carter's distraught and embittered mother, Raina Conner.

Sheriff's spokeswoman Phyllis Stephens declined to comment while the SBI is investigating.

Family members say that Carter, 25, had recently been released from Holly Hill Hospital, a behavioral-healthfacility, where he had committed himself for 10 days to deal with problems with alcohol.

He had been staying at an aunt's home since Feb. 4, but on Friday his uncle, Todd McElfresh, picked him up to spend time at his two-story home on 5425 Live Oak Trail. Despite Carter's attempts to stay sober, McElfresh could tell his nephew had been drinking.

Around 11 p.m. Friday, Carter's longtime friend Thomas Boykin, 19, arrived at McElfresh's home to stay overnight. Carter was already asleep when Boykin arrived, but woke him at 5 a.m. the next day.

"He just said, 'Get up,' " Boykin said. "He was already drunk."

Boykin and Carter spent the early morning hours hanging around the house and listening to Tupac Shakur and Eminem on YouTube. Later, the two joined McElfresh on the back porch where they smoked cigarettes.

"He started about how he didn't want to be here," Boykin said. "I told him he was crazy and needed to go get help. He told his uncle to call Holly Hill. He didn't want to die."

Carter asked family to call for help

McElfresh first called Holly Hill, but said no one answered the phone. He also called family members, then dialed 911 just before 9:30 a.m. McElfresh told the 911 dispatcher that his nephew wanted to be admitted to Holly Hill for mental health treatment.

"He was in detox last week. He needs to get some help. He's threatening to slit his wrists," McElfresh told the 911 operator. "I need to get him somewhere. He's crying out for help."

When Thompson arrived, McElfresh met him at the front door. As the deputy stepped into the foyer of the residence, McElfresh stepped away and Carter appeared at the top of a small set of stairs, with Boykin about 12 feet behind him. Carter held a small kitchen knife with a 3-inch blade in his right hand, pointed downward by his leg, Boykin and McElfresh said.

McElfresh can be heard on the 911 recording made public after the shooting. "Put the knife down, Adam," he said.

The two men said that when Thompson saw the knife he pulled out his service weapon and ordered Carter to "drop the knife."

Carter did not drop the knife. Instead he took a step down the stairs. "Drop the knife or I will shoot," they recall Thompson saying.

Carter took another step down the stairs and said, "Go ahead and shoot me. I want you to."

Thompson had ordered him twice more to drop the knife as Carter descended the stairs. Carter instead raised the knife waist-high as he continued toward Thompson. McElfresh and Boykin both said the blade still pointed downward.

Thompson fired his weapon twice, and Carter crumpled to the floor, they said. Thompson went to Carter and checked his pulse before radioing for backup.

McElfresh used towels to try and staunch the blood flowing from Carter's chest. More sheriff's deputies arrived and were joined by SBI agents.

Later that day, McElfresh said one investigator asked him if he thought Carter's actions were "suicide by cop."

"I had never even heard of the term," he said.

Now, McElfresh wonders if Thompson could have used less-violent means - such as pepper spray or a Taser - to subdue his nephew. And he wonders if the deputy could have backed away and called for backup to help his nephew who was in the middle of a mental health crisis. "I was pissed. I was shocked," he said. "I just wasn't ready for that."