Fayetteville city councilwoman’s teenage daughter shot to death: media reports
Police in Fayetteville are investigating a shooting in a suburban neighborhood around dinnertime Friday that killed the teenage daughter of a Fayetteville city councilwoman, The Fayetteville Observer reported.
The Observer said the killing, which happened around 7 p.m. on Maitland Drive in Fayetteville, was the city’s fourth homicide in a week.
The victim is Coryonna Young, the 15-year-old daughter of City Councilwoman Courtney Banks-McLaughlin, the paper reported, citing Fayetteville Mayor Mitch Colvin.
Police couldn’t be reached for comment by The News & Observer; other media outlets also reported being unable to reach them.
But Colvin confirmed Young’s death, writing in a text message that “We are all heartbroken to hear about the tragic loss of our colleague’s daughter. Our thoughts and prayers are with Councilwoman Banks-McLaughlin and her family.”
Banks-McLaughlin is married with five children, according to her biography on the City Council website. Their home is not on Maitland Drive, where the shooting occurred.
In a Facebook post Friday night, the police reported the shooting but did not name the victim, and asked anyone with information to send help to their tipline.
On Saturday, a nonprofit group called Heal The ‘Ville was holding its second annual “Stop The Violence” rally at a park near downtown Fayetteville. It was planned before the recent spate of shootings, but those only drove its message home, speakers said.
State Sen. Kirk deViere, a Democrat who represents the area in the legislature, spoke about creating a community that his 5-year-old and other kids can safely grow up in.
“We as a community need to be intentional about reducing gun violence,” he said, noting that “there’s been three deaths in the last two days.”
“What I know is we have to come together as a community,” he added. “Republican, Democrat, white, Black, Latino. Yellow, black, brown, rich, poor. Gun violence affects everyone.”
An hour north, in Raleigh, hundreds gathered at churches around town Saturday, for funerals of two of the victims in the Oct. 13 mass shooting in the Hedingham neighborhood — a tragedy deViere also invoked.
“Look at what happened in Raleigh just last week, when there was gun violence that struck right in our state’s capitol,” he said. “We have to continue to come together. Look. Nobody has a perfect solution, but ... there is no wrong idea. We have to collectively not lose focus, not lose sight of this.”
The N&O previously reported that while the Republican-led legislature has typically favored policies that expand gun access, a bill to help gun owners get trigger locks passed the N.C. House nearly unanimously last year, in a vote of 116-1. But it was never allowed to get a vote in the N.C. Senate.
In the wake of the Hedingham shooting, Democratic lawmakers renewed their calls to pass that bill as well as a “red flag” bill that would allow judges to order people to turn in their guns if deemed a threat to themselves or others. North Carolina already has a red flag law specifically for domestic abusers, but it does not apply to any other situations.
