Neighbors say Raleigh man who died in shooting had been troubled recently | News & Observer

The neighbors of a 24-year-old man who died after a Monday shooting behind a home on Donald Ross Drive said the deceased had appeared troubled in recent days.

Two days before the incident in which Jaqwan Julius Terry was left dead and Raleigh police officer B.F. Burleson was wounded, a person who knew Terry, Tommy Pittman, saw him standing in front of the red-brick duplex apartment on Warren Avenue where he lived with his mother.

“Seemed like he had a lot on his mind,” said Pittman, who lives on Rock Quarry Road but regularly visits an uncle who lives on Warren Avenue. “I asked him, ‘you alright bro?’ He just looked at me. He just sat there and stared.”

Police were dispatched to the area Monday after a woman called 911 at 11:36 a.m. to report a man with a gun at 241 Donald Ross Drive.

SIGN UP

“There’s a man with a gun outside,” said the woman on a recording of the call. “And he’s trespassing, because he’s not supposed to be here.”

Terry’s next-door neighbor, Danny Page, said the young man was “mad about something” early Monday.

“He was yelling in the house,” Page said.

The shooting took place several blocks away, behind a house at 311 Donald Ross Drive. A police officer responding to the 911 call saw the man in the street and gave chase on foot before the officer was joined by a second officer, police said.

Paramedics transported Burleson to WakeMed, where he was treated for a non-life threatening gunshot wound to the leg. The second officer involved in the encounter, B.S. Beausoleil, was not injured, police reported.

Raleigh police reported the “officer-involved shooting” to the State Bureau of Investigation, which will investigate and submit its findings to the Wake County District Attorney.

The Raleigh Police Department’s Internal Affairs Unit will conduct an administrative investigation that will focus on whether the officers followed department policies. The department also will provide a written report about the shooting to the city manager within five business days.

Police have not yet made public specific details about the shooting.

Terry’s mother, Rose Mae Harden, said Tuesday afternoon that police had not told her anything about what happened.

“Automatically, they went there with their guns drawn,” Harden said about the police response. She said there was talk in the neighborhood that gunfire was exchanged between police and her son while he was running.

Police spokesman Jim Sughrue, declined to comment late Tuesday, saying the shooting was under investigation.

The shooting took place near the entrance of Raleigh Country Club, and police closed off much of Donald Ross Drive between New Bern Avenue and Poole Road most of the day Monday. Police reopened the road Tuesday.

The impressive show of police force Monday was dramatically scaled back Tuesday. Sets of police officers sat in parked cruisers in front of the red-brick, one-story home where the shooting occurred. Officers also stood watch at the 2800 block of Haven Road and behind the Wake Assisted Living building that leads into the backyard at 311 Donald Ross Drive.

Sughrue released police radio traffic recordings Monday night. At about 11:43 a.m. Monday, an officer announced that they were pursuing Terry and coming through a patch of woods off Kidd Road.

One minute later, an officer reports that shots have been fired. He asks an emergency dispatcher to send more police units.

“Put the gun down!” an officer can be heard yelling on the call.

Moments later, the officer informs the dispatcher and other officers that he is in the backyard at 311 Donald Ross Drive and that the armed man won’t put his weapon down.

“Put the gun down bro,” the officer can be heard saying.

Seconds later, the officer reports that an officer has been struck in the leg by gunfire. The injured officer was conscious and breathing. Another officer reported that the man “still got his hand on the handgun,” according to the recordings.

Sughrue, the police spokesman, said he reviewed police and jail records and “found no indication [Terry] had been charged with trespassing.”

State records show that Terry had several run-ins with the law. In 2013 in Wake County, he was convicted of driving while impaired, felony speeding to elude arrest and misdemeanor hit and run. He was sentenced to one year probation in January after he was convicted of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Still, Terry’s neighbors described him as someone who, before last weekend, was usually smiling and jovial.

“He’s a good kid,” Pittman said. “I know his family. He was a pretty good guy.”