Durham police identify man found fatally shot in car on NC 55

Police identified a man found fatally shot in a car on N.C. 55 Sunday evening as 31-year-old Jamal McClinton Coltrane.

Officers were responding to a call about a vehicle stopped in a traffic lane near Latitude Drive around 5:30 p.m., the Durham Police Department said in a news release. Coltrane died at the scene, police said.

The investigation shut down the highway between Latitude Drive and Riddle Road on Sunday night.

Police declined to say if Coltrane was shot while driving or whether the shooting was a random act.

The department is asking anyone with information to call investigators at 919-560-4440, ext. 29532 or CrimeStoppers at 919-683-1200.

Those who provide information leading to an arrest can earn cash rewards and do not have to identify themselves.

Shootings down, but homicides rising

Homicides are up this year in Durham.

As of Oct. 9, the latest data available on the Police Department website, there had been 39 criminal homicides in the city, up from 24 by the same date last year.

From 2016-20, the city averaged 34 homicides a year by the same date.

As of Oct. 30, there had been 674 total shootings reported in Durham, according to police data. That figure was down from the 805 reported shootings as of the same date the year before.

Fewer people overall had been shot — with 230 in 2021 compared to 265 the year before.

But the number of people killed in those shootings rose from 24 in 2020 to 35 this year.

As of Oct. 30, 2019, there had been 571 shootings with 158 people shot, 30 of them fatally.

This story was originally published November 8, 2021 at 7:52 AM.