Charlotte neighborhood with 3 murders in 4 days under pressure of rapid gentrification
One man died and two others were wounded in gunfire that erupted around midnight Thursday in a neighborhood north of uptown Charlotte.
It’s the second time in four days that police say they’ve been called to the Druid Hills neighborhood off Statesville Road for a fatal shooting investigation. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department says 19-year-old David Wayne Burns died around 12:30 a.m. Thursday. Names of the two other men wounded Thursday have not been released.
Early Sunday morning, two 35-year-old victims — Siojvon Joseph and Asa Shannon — were discovered dead in a car. The vehicle was reported to police after a passerby noticed it sitting down an embankment, police said.
Thursday’s shooting, investigators say, happened in the 700 block of Holland Avenue, a dead-end street near the intersection of Atando and Statesville avenues.
Officers found Burns dead, with a gunshot wound, inside a vehicle, police said.
“Two additional male victims were located nearby with gunshot wounds and both were transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries ... At this time, the relationship between the victims is unknown.”
There are also few details known about the case from Sunday. Police have not said how long Joseph and Shannon were in the car before it was discovered or whether the car wrecked before they were shot. As of Thursday afternoon, no arrests had been made in the case.
Neighbors who live in Druid Hills say the area is rapidly growing and that while crime has generally improved in recent years this week’s three consecutive homicides aren’t shocking. Gentrification — the process of longtime residents, most often black residents, being displaced as commercial and residential developments spring up — is rapidly changing Druid Hills, neighbors say.
A changing neighborhood
President of the Druid Hills Neighborhood Association Darryl Reginald Gaston said he is disappointed to hear about the murders and disappointed that the violence will give a bad perception of what his neighborhood is really like.
“My neighborhood is valuable,” he said. “We have worth.”
Charles Alexander, 79, the owner of the Charles Barber Shop, said while murders are not common he was not surprised to hear of the three homicides in recent days.
“I’ve been living here all my life,” he said.
The neighborhood, Alexander said, has had periods of worse violence, including in the 80s and 90s.
Gaston, who has kept the same landline phone number in Druid Hills for 58 years, said historically the neighborhood has been a community where people help each other out.
However, he said, challenges have followed as property taxes and rents have increased, causing more people to moved out of the neighborhood.
Nearby, a co-working space and other businesses have moved into Camp North End, which opened in 2017 after the redevelopment of an old factory. That’s just one example of development in the area.
In February, the Observer reported home values are skyrocketing and waves of new residents are transforming historically black neighborhoods around the city, including Druid Hills.
Druid Hills has seen an influx of development, as development spreads to the neighborhoods surrounding uptown. Investors have snapped up homes and frequently bombard homeowners with letters offering to buy their houses. Property values in the census tract that includes Druid Hills surged 134% in the 2019 revaluation, according to an Observer analysis.
The neighborhood, Gaston said, “is experiencing urban growth and along with that urban growth comes the things that happen in the city.”
Jarvis Miller, church administrator at the nearby St. Luke Missionary Baptist Church on Norris Avenue, said crime nearby tends to occur at night. But during the day, children are often seen playing outside.
CMPD has worked to build trust in the neighborhood, Gaston said. Residents used to not report crime, he said, but now calls to 911 have seem to be up.
“It’s a shame,” Miller said. “I hope they’ll figure out what to do to prevent it.”
CMPD is asking for anyone with information about the shooting Thursday or the two homicides Saturday to call 704-432-TIPS or Crime Stoppers at 704-334-1600.
Reporter Danielle Chemtob contributed.
This story was originally published January 16, 2020 at 5:27 AM with the headline "Charlotte neighborhood with 3 murders in 4 days under pressure of rapid gentrification."
