Audio recording reveals what happened minutes before the Wake courthouse shooting
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- An audio recording captures Gwendolyn White saying, "I'm going to get her.”
- White allegedly shot two attorneys outside the Wake County courthouse Friday.
- Court filings indicate White believed the attorneys were conspiring against her.
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Courthouse shooting
Two lawyers were shot outside the old Wake County Courthouse on Friday, May 22, 2026, after they were involved in a court case with the suspect. Gwendolyn White, the suspected shooter, is now charged with attempted murder. Here’s ongoing coverage about the case.
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Minutes before allegedly shooting two attorneys outside the Wake County courthouse, Gwendolyn White shouted to the courtroom what she planned to do.
“I’m going after you,” White said in an audio recording released to The News & Observer. “I’m going completely after you all the way up to the top. I promise you that. And I’m going to get her. See ya! So throw it.”
It’s not clear from the audio whom White was referring to, though attorney Mary Katherine Harris can be heard on the recording before and after White apparently left the courtroom. Harris was one of the two people shot Friday. She and her colleague, Jeffrey Whitley, are expected to survive their injuries, according to police.
The attorneys were present as part of a suit White brought against the Rolesville Police Department related to a body camera footage request in a March 2021 incident.
White filed the request in February 2022, but the police department said it had deleted the footage after a month, in keeping with its record retention policies. Nearly four years elapsed between White’s request for the footage being granted and White filing a motion in January to reopen her petition; she claimed she’d never received the footage.
What happened Friday in the courtroom before shooting?
Friday’s roughly 30-minute recording starts with attorney Aviance Brown, who had been representing White pro bono, arguing her motion to withdraw from the case.
“I think at this time we have just ... had a substantial breakdown in communication,” Brown said. “My responsibilities ethically and according to the state bar rules, I cannot persist with some of the concerns that I have, and so I just would be asking Your Honor to allow me to withdraw from the case.”
Judge Jennifer Bedford granted Brown’s motion, with Brown noting she believed White was “fully prepared to handle the matter on her own.”
Bedford then discussed White’s motion for Bedford to recuse herself from the case and motion for a trial. White had alleged Bedford had communications with Harris outside the courtroom, which Bedford denied.
Furthermore, though White alleged Bedford had been ruling against her since 2019, Bedford noted she hadn’t become a judge until 2022. The only hearing she was aware of previously presiding over involving White was in August 2023, when White requested a restraining order against her neighbors. Bedford denied her request, she said, but didn’t recall the hearing now.
“I did reach out to the judicial standards staff and asked for an informal advisory opinion about whether or not I should recuse myself,” Bedford said. “They ... said that recusal may only be appropriate in an instance where my impartiality may reasonably be questioned.”
Bedford noted White’s allegations that she and Judge Margaret Eagles, who had previously entered a gatekeeping order against White to prevent her from filing frivolous lawsuits, were “in cahoots with the KKK.”
“Additionally, there were allegations of me shushing counsel during the January hearing and verbally coaching counsel,” Bedford continued. “After a thorough review of the audio recording, there is no shushing. There’s also no verbal ... coaching.”
When given the opportunity to argue her point, White insisted her recollections were accurate; she claimed she’d spoken with the NAACP and the National Action Network, who she said were “building their civil rights case” against Bedford.
White also repeated claims that acid had been poured on her late mother while her mother was in a nursing home.
“You can not like me, you can not care about me, you don’t even have to give a crap that this woman right here had acid poured on her,” White said. “I don’t care anymore. I really don’t. But my job right here is to get justice for her, whether you like me or not.”
White also claimed judicial staff had told her there was no gatekeeper order against her. Court records reviewed by The N&O indicate a gatekeeper order was entered against White in December 2023.
“I’ve been through pure hell for five years and all they had to do was stop it,” White said. “I have begged the judicial branch, law enforcement and the DV department to stop it. Because I asked for justice.
“It’s easy to go out there in the street and do crap, but it’s easier to stand here and ask for justice and do things the right way,” she continued.
Minutes later, police said, White allegedly retrieved a handgun from her car, accosted Harris and Whitley in an alleyway near the courthouse and shot them.
This story was originally published May 27, 2026 at 1:09 PM.
