Woman shot outside UNC clinic in Durham had sought protection from accused killer
Correction: The story was updated at 8:30 a.m. Nov. 26 to say someone can be arrested for violating a consent order.
Durham police say a man shot and killed a woman he had dated and then fatally shot himself Monday morning outside the UNC Family Medicine building on Mayfair Street.
Officers found the pair dead in the parking lot of the three-story office complex in the 3700 block of Mayfair Street shortly after 8 a.m.
It appears Lequintin Ford, 33, shot Victoria Amanda St. Hillaire, 28, and then shot himself, according to a preliminary investigation. They had been in a “prior dating relationship,” police said.
St. Hillaire worked at the clinic, police said.
Ford had a number of pending charges against him in Alamance County and was scheduled to appear in court in January on three charges of felony stalking, one charge of misdemeanor stalking, three violations of a domestic violence protective order and one charge of misdemeanor harassing phone call, according to court records.
It was not clear Monday whether any of those charges involved St. Hillaire.
At the time of the shooting, Ford was under a consent order prohibiting him from having contact with St. Hillaire or her minor children, according to the Alamance County Clerk of Court’s Office.
That order, issued Oct. 28, followed a domestic violence protective order that St. Hillaire had taken out against him in 2018 that expired in May. She had also had taken out a protective order in 2015 that she voluntarily dismissed, the clerk’s office said.
While someone can be arrested for violating a consent order, which is similar to a domestic violence protective order.
Ford was also scheduled for a custody hearing this week involving a different woman who had obtained a domestic violence protective order in Orange County.
UNC Health Care spokesman Phil Bridges said the clinic, which focuses on primary care and employs roughly 35 people, will be closed the rest of the week, including Thanksgiving and Friday, which had already been planned. Patients can call 984-974-0210 to reschedule appointments.
2 killed in Sunday shootings
Monday’s shooting follows a day of violence in Durham.
Two men were found injured by gunfire Sunday evening, one of them fatally, after police responded to a shooting call on University Drive near Hill Street around 8 p.m.
Officer found 29-year-old Jonathan Lamont Johnson of Durham shot inside the car. He was taken to the hospital, where he died, police said in a news release.
A short time later, the second man that police believe was shot during the same incident was taken to the hospital in a private car. Police said Monday he was treated and released from the hospital.
The shootings likely happened in the area of South and Enterprise streets, the release stated.
Anyone with information in the Sunday night shootings is asked to call investigators at 919-560-4440, ext. 29336 or CrimeStoppers at 919-683-1200.
Sunday afternoon, police responded to a fatal shooting on Wabash Street in the McDougald Terrace public housing community.
The shooting was reported shortly before 1:15 p.m. in front of Building 37. A man — later identified as Maurice Daye, 19, of Durham — was pronounced dead at the scene. A female who was also shot during this incident was taken to the hospital with injuries that did not appear to be life-threatening, police said.
Anyone with information in that shooting is asked to call investigators at 919-560-4440, ext. 29322 or CrimeStoppers at 919-683-1200. CrimeStoppers pays cash rewards for information leading to arrests in felony cases and callers never have to identify themselves.
More officers, technology rejected
Last week, Police Chief C.J. Davis told the Durham City Council that reported violent crime was up 6% and shootings up 17% during the first nine months of 2019.
There were 33 reported homicides in Durham as of Nov. 16, according to the Police Department’s website. That compares to 27 homicides by the same time in 2018, and 16 by the same time in 2017.
Last month after 10 people were shot in Durham, two of them fatally, in 48 hours, Davis said the Police Department and Sheriff’s Office were building up an “enhanced gang task force.”
“It is our hope that directing more focused investigative efforts towards gang members, and other offenders who are responsible, will help to suppress gun violence throughout our city,” Davis said at the time.
In August, Davis joined city leaders at a press conference after the fatal drive-by shooting of 9-year-old Z’yon Person. A U.S. attorney said his office was working to identify key figures for federal prosecution. Davis said she was devoting more resources to the homicide unit, although she did not say whether that meant more investigators.
Police staffing was an issue during the recent city elections.
The City Council rejected the chief’s request for 18 additional police officers during last spring’s budget talks, as well as a compromise offered by Mayor Steve Schewel for nine more officers.
Voters re-elected three council incumbents to at-large seats who opposed more officers. They said long-term trends showed violent crime was down from several years ago and that hiring additional police would not necessarily make the city safer and could lead to over-policing in communities of color.
The community coalition Durham Beyond Policing agreed with the incumbents. The Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People supported the chief’s request.
The council has also rejected repeated requests from City Council member Mark-Anthony Middleton for Shotspotter, surveillance technology that tracks the location of gunfire by sound.
In 2017, 90 cities used ShotSpotter nationwide, according to Business Insider. Columbia, South Carolina, began using it in April 2019, The State newspaper reported.
On his Facebook page Monday, Middleton urged against complacency.
“There is a cancer that is now metastasizing in our city. It is leaving in its wake a trail of young black bodies, heartbroken families, and a frightened community,” he wrote. “ What is possibly more ominous is that I believe we are creeping up on a dangerous inflection point. That point is where we become desensitized to the gun violence robbing us of our children because it happens so often.”
This story was originally published November 25, 2019 at 8:56 AM.