4-year-old victim identified following northwest Charlotte shooting

CHARLOTTE — The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department is investigating a homicide in northwest Charlotte.

It happened around 3:00 a.m. Sunday on Grassy Patch Lane. Officers responded to reports of shots being fired into occupied homes.

According to CMPD, one juvenile was transported with life-threatening injuries and an adult was transported with non-life-threatening injuries.

Just after 7 a.m., the juvenile, who has been identified as four-year-old Caleb Flax, was pronounced dead at the hospital.

A total of four houses were hit by gunfire. Flax was asleep in his bedroom and his grandfather tells us he never woke up.

Flax was the happiest child in his neighborhood. He loved to ride his bike and watch football with his grandfather.

“Very sweet child, very sweet child. He was the life of the neighborhood,” said Flax’s grandfather who didn’t want his face shown. “Four-years-old. It was senseless. All this gun violence over nothing.”

Channel 9 obtained doorbell camera video of the shooting.

Hours after the incident, you could see police laying out more than 100 evidence markers indicative of the number of shots fired.

One house took the brunt of the gunfire and a woman inside was hit in the thigh.

A stray bullet went into a house on the corner and into the bedroom of a 16-year-old.

None of the neighbors understand what brought the gunmen to the area. They just hope police can catch them soon.

“Whoever is committing acts like this, yeah they got to come off the streets,” a neighbor said. “They definitely can’t be among the public.”

“Come at 3’o clock in the morning, wake everybody abruptly while they was asleep,” the grandfather said. “Cowards, cowards.”

Flax’s family said he was looking forward to the school year.

Now they have to plan for his funeral.

“I’m a man of faith. I believe in God. God don’t make no mistakes. He is in paradise already,” said the grandfather.

He tells Channel 9 that neighbors have wrapped their arms around the family, and that they are thankful for all the support they have been given.

©2026 Cox Media Group