15-year-old Hillside High student among 2 killed in Durham shooting. 4 others injured

The victims of a Durham shooting that left two teenagers dead and four other children injured included multiple Durham Public Schools students, district officials said Tuesday.

Isaiah Carrington, a 19-year-old who was killed in the Monday shooting, formerly attended Northern High School and the Performance Learning Center.

The other teen who died, Ariuna Cotton, was a 15-year-old student at Hillside High School.

“Every life in Durham is precious, especially the lives of those who walk our halls to learn and grow,” the district said in a statement. “Our students have limitless potential, and it is our community’s shared responsibility to ensure that their potential is not cut short by violence. “

District officials said other Durham students were injured in the shooting, but added they could not release their names or schools for their safety and the integrity of the ongoing police investigation.

The shooting occurred around 3 a.m. Monday near the intersection of Mathison and Eugene streets in east Durham, where police found an SUV crashed into a utility pole and six people who had been shot.

The surviving victims are a 13-year-old boy and three girls, ages 17, 13 and 12 years old. Police said one of them remained in critical condition Tuesday.

A 15-year-old boy who was also in the SUV was not injured, according to a Police Department news release.

The SUV, a Hyundai Santa Fe, had been reported stolen on Sunday.

Chief Patrice Andrews said the shooting did not appear to be random.

“There is no room in our city for this type of violence,” she said at a Monday news conference. “It’s senseless. It’s beyond tragic. And lives are forever going to be changed.”

The News & Observer asked if police had identified a motive for the shooting, but the department said no further details were available.

The N&O made a public information request for the police incident report and copies of any 911 calls.

Shootings down amid record homicides

This year has seen the most homicides in the Bull City since at least 1995, according to police records.

Andrews told City Council last week that there had been 43 homicides so far in 2021, with 29 unsolved.

Homicides were up 58% in the first nine months of the year, she said.

But while homicides and fatal shootings rose this year, there were fewer overall shootings, according to police data.

As of late November, police had solved roughly 44.2% of homicides in Durham, which included about 41.7% of shooting homicides.

For overall shooting incidents, police had solved just under one in five cases so far this year, which was a higher percentage than in the prior two years.

In 2020, police solved about 11.6% of shooting incidents, while in 2019 they solved roughly 12.6%.

Violence prevention efforts

Earlier this year, the city committed to spending more than $900,000 to expand Bull City United, a program that sends violence interrupters and outreach workers into neighborhoods to address gun violence through a public health approach.

The expansion moved the county program from operating within two census tracts to six. The site of the Monday shooting falls within one of the designated areas.

During a presentation to city and county officials on Tuesday, County General Manager of Health and Well-being for All Joanne Pierce said Bull City United team members respond to every shooting within their census tracts, working to prevent retaliation and mediate ongoing conflicts.

“If it is in the census tract, Bull City United will operationalize the model,” she said when asked about the Monday shooting. “And so there are clear cut ways in which they work within the community.”

At the site of the shooting on Monday, City Councilman Leonardo Williams said Durham needed to look to the community for further solutions.

“I know for a fact that the solutions for what we are dealing with are embedded in the community,” he said. “And it us up to us as a local government, as local leadership to ensure we are creating a safe culture for communication. It’s up to us to ensure we are addressing the basic needs.”

Williams pointed to Bull City United as one of the city’s violence prevention efforts.

”Just because it’s (one of our) primary efforts, just because it is an effective program, doesn’t mean it’s enough,” Williams said. “There has to be more.”

Police have asked those with information about Monday’s shooting to call investigators at 919-560-4440, ext. 29163 or CrimeStoppers at 919-683-1200. People who provide anonymous tips leading to arrests in felony cases can earn cash rewards.

This story was originally published December 14, 2021 at 12:36 PM.