© 2025 254 North Front Street, Suite 300, Wilmington, NC 28401 | 910.343.1640
News Classical 91.3 Wilmington 92.7 Wilmington 96.7 Southport
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Mecklenburg district attorney details chaotic scene at shooting that left four officers dead

House with the front damaged
Nick de la Canal
/
WFAE
The house on Galway Drive where four officers were shot and killed, and four more wounded, on Monday, April 29. The house was severely damaged when officers in SWAT vehicles forced their way in.

Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather released a review Thursday of the shooting that killed four law enforcement officers in east Charlotte this spring, the deadliest day for law enforcement in the city's history.

The review highlights the chaotic and harrowing scene on April 29, with hundreds of rounds flying and officers trying to figure out if there was more than one shooter.

The incident started when a U.S. Marshals fugitive task force arrived at a home on Galway Drive to serve arrest warrants on Terry Hughes Jr. He was wanted for felony fleeing to elude in Lincoln County, and for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

According to the report, Hughes was standing in a doorway and saw the law enforcement vehicles coming. He ducked inside as officers surrounded the house, and police ordered him to come out, using a loudspeaker.

That's when Hughes opened fire, wounding three officers. Over the course of the standoff, eight law enforcement officers were shot, four fatally – Thomas Weeks Jr., Alden Elliot, Samuel Poloche and Joshua Eyer.

'Common communication snarls'

The task force members used a separate radio channel that wasn’t monitored by CMPD. Once the officers were shot, the review says the lone CMPD officer among the group was able to relay to CMPD dispatch that officers were down.

Two minutes later, hundreds of police officers began arriving at the home in east Charlotte. The review says Hughes was firing a Radical Arms RF-15 rifle from a second-story window. Police shot and killed him after he jumped, still armed, into the front yard. At that point, officers relayed over Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department radio, that Hughes was down, but officers on the side of the home didn’t receive the message.

According to the review, an officer thought he saw movement in an upstairs window and fired one shot. This caused the others at the scene to think there might be a second shooter and return fire, when there wasn’t.

Those kinds of communication snarls are common, said Ian Adams, a Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of South Carolina. Officers from different agencies rely on different radio channels. Radio communication can also be a challenge among officers within the same police department.

“Only one person can talk at a time, so it can be quite chaotic as information is trying to roll out of the scene and get to responding officers,” said Adams. “That’s always a critical area of concern.”

Adams calls it “a limit of the technology, more than a limit of tactics.”

The crossfire

Hughes had marijuana in his system, the report found, but no other psychoactive drugs.
A total of 29 spent rounds from Hughes' rifle were found, along with two additional 30-round magazines and a handgun that hadn't been fired.

In all, 23 officers fired a total of 340 rounds over the course of the standoff. Merriweather found the actions of the officers lawful.

The review says the four officers who were killed did not fire their weapons before they were shot.

No broad tactical lessons

There is not enough information in the review “to draw broad tactical lessons,” said Adams.

The CMPD officer was the only one among the task force members initially serving the arrest warrant that had a body worn camera.

“These are amongst the worst incidents in U.S. policing history. And we have to learn from them for the safety of officers, to make sure the communities are getting the policing they want,” said Adams.

He said that’s a lot harder when there's no body-worn camera footage to rely on. But this region of the U.S Marshal’s service, he said, is scheduled to receive that equipment this quarter.

Sign up for our daily headlines newsletter

Select Your Email Format

Lisa Worf traded the Midwest for Charlotte in 2006 to take a job at WFAE. She worked with public TV in Detroit and taught English in Austria before making her way to radio. Lisa graduated from University of Chicago with a bachelor’s degree in English.