A North Carolina man who made a 911 call about "hoodlums" near his house is now facing charges in the fatal shooting of a black man who was outside the home at the time, the Associated Press reports.
According to the report, the early-Sunday-morning shooting occurred when Chad Cameron Copley, 39, who is white, fired his shotgun from inside his garage, hitting 20-year-old Kouren-Rodney Bernard Thomas, the Raleigh Police Department confirmed in a news release. Copley was arrested hours later and was held on a murder charge.
Thomas was pronounced dead at a hospital.
AP notes that police released the 911 recording that came shortly before the shooting, in which the male caller tells the dispatcher that he's "locked and loaded" and ready to go outside to confront the "hoodlums." He told the dispatcher that the people outside had guns and that he was on the neighborhood watch, asking the dispatcher to send the police.
"We've got a bunch of hoodlums out here racing," he says. "I am locked and loaded. I'm going outside to secure my neighborhood."
When the dispatcher attempts to get the caller's address, he refuses to give it and hangs up.
A few minutes later, however, a female caller is heard on the line during a second 911 call, giving the dispatcher an address that would later be identified as Copley's house.
When the dispatcher asks her what happened, she responds, "I don't know. I'm upstairs with our children."
The female caller then gives the phone to a male caller who sounds like the man from the previous 911 call.
"We have a lot of people outside of our house yelling and shouting profanity. I yelled at them, 'Please leave the premises.' They were showing firearms, so I fired a warning shot," the male caller tells the dispatcher in the second call. "And, uh, we got somebody that got hit."
The dispatcher asks if someone was shot.
"I don't know if they're shot or not. I fired my warning shot like I'm supposed to by law," the man responds. "They do have firearms, and I'm trying to protect myself and my family."
When the dispatcher asks who was outside, the caller says, "There's black males outside my freaking house with firearms."
According to AP, Thomas was among the individuals who were outside Copley's home. However, police spokesperson Laura Hourigan did not elaborate where Thomas was when he was shot.
AP reports that two people called 911 and told the dispatcher that the shots came from inside the house.
"Someone just got shot," one of the callers says. "Someone shot him out of his house."
Copley appeared before a judge Monday and was denied bail.
Read more at the Associated Press.