Chase ends with shooting in Raleigh

Carjacking suspect in serious condition at WakeMed

RALEIGH -- Police chased a carjacking suspect and shot him in downtown Raleigh in an eruption of violence just before Tuesday's rush hour.

During the chase, a police cruiser hit a car in eastern Raleigh, and a stolen cab hit a van near Lane and Dawson streets. The man driving the cab fled the wreck and brandished a weapon before he was shot shortly before 4 p.m., police said. He lay in a parking lot near the intersection of Jones and Dawson streets as paramedics and police detectives gathered around him.

Renford Butler, 34, the Durham man who police said was driving the cab, was taken to surgery at WakeMed Raleigh Campus late Tuesday. He was in serious condition.

Cab driver Ahmed Osman, 26, told N.C. State University police and State Capitol police that he was assaulted about 2 p.m. by a man on the Dorothea Dix campus, who then stole his Durham's Best cab and fled.

Law officers were told to look out for the vehicle. Raleigh police Sgt. Ray Nantz spotted it as he directed traffic on Poole Road. Nantz pursued the cab as it sped toward downtown Raleigh, said Police Chief Harry Dolan. Dolan said the driving was "dangerous, careless and reckless, with the car going off the road at points."

As police closed in on the cab, it crashed into the van. Butler jumped from the vehicle and ran from officers, according to a news release issued by Raleigh police attorney Dawn Bryant.

Butler tried and failed to enter a nearby building, and officers ordered him to surrender, Bryant said. Butler started toward the officers with a blade, the release said.

Officer J. Bloodworth shot him twice.

Butler twitched as emergency workers exposed his chest to attend his wounds. He was still moving slightly when they loaded him onto a gurney and slid him into a waiting ambulance.

Bloodworth has worked for the Raleigh police since June 2002. As is standard, Bloodworth was placed on paid administrative duty. The State Bureau of Investigation was contacted to investigate the shooting, and its report will be reviewed by the Wake County district attorney. The Raleigh Police Department's Internal Affairs Unit also will investigate.

Tuesday's shooting prompted the closure of the block of North Dawson Street between Lane and Jones streets, bringing traffic to a halt.

Streets were cordoned with yellow police tape, and workers' faces pressed against windows to watch the scene.

Andy Parker, a facilities management employee, said he and a coworker heard two shots while working nearby. "We ran the other way," Parker said.

It wasn't Butler's first tangle with the police, although he had never been imprisoned. His criminal record shows that since 1999 he has twice been convicting of assaulting a female, and in 2000 he was convicted of resisting a public officer. His most recent infraction came on July 1, when he was found guilty in Durham County of soliciting to obtain property under false pretenses. He was placed on probation, according to N.C. Department of Correction records.

From Durham to Dix

The incident began about 1:15 p.m. in Durham.

Osman said in a phone interview late Tuesday that he picked up a man on the 1200 block of Fayetteville Street and agreed to take the man to Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh, usually a $50 fare. During the 30-minute drive, the man was chatty, Osman said, even asking to use the cab driver's phone. Osman, a Sudanese immigrant finishing a degree at UNC-Chapel Hill, agreed.

Osman exited Interstate 40 at Lake Wheeler Road and entered the mental hospital's expansive campus at its eastern edge.

That's when the man pulled out what resembled an X-Acto knife, showed a gun and held the knife to Osman's neck, demanding money. "I thought I was going to die, that this is my last minute," Osman said.

Osman handed over $75 to $100. The man also took his cell phone.

During the struggle, Osman was cut by the knife on both of his hands.

The carjacker left, threatening Osman and telling him not to talk to the police. The cabbie went to the nearest building on the Dix campus to report what happened.

Meanwhile, the stolen cab was spotted by Nantz and the police chase began. Blocks away from where the cab finally crashed, a Raleigh police vehicle with two officers inside hit another car just east of downtown while responding to the reports of the chase or crash. A car with officers A. R. Caruana and L.M. Younker inside collided with another car at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Grantland Drive, injuring two other people. All four were taken to WakeMed to be evaluated. That accident is also under investigation.

Tuesday's robbery was a first for Osman, who drives cabs to support himself while he studies biomedical engineering at UNC. He hasn't decided whether he'll return to work.

"This is my first and hopefully my last time," Osman said of the robbery.