CHARLOTTE — This week marks four years since four people died in a mass shooting at Juneteenth event on Beatties Ford Road in west Charlotte.
Years later, no one has been charged in the shooting, leaving a father of one of the victims still searching for justice. Charles Billings’ son, Jamaa Cassell, was one of the four people shot during the gathering in 2020.
“I was hurt for my son, and now I’m hurt for 4 years coming up,” Billings said.
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Billings still has plenty of questions about the lack of an arrest.
“You got all these cameras and everything over there, and it makes you wonder, do you care,” he said.
Billings say he is still waiting for what he calls proper acknowledgment from the city on why multiple street takeovers on Beatties Ford Road were allowed that weekend.
“Til today from day one, nobody at the police department have come to my house and told me my son had passed,” Billings said.
Billings told Channel 9 that a recent conversation with his mom has helped him move to another stage of grief: acceptance.
“I told her, in tears, and I had a whew, and I told her, I’m alright now,” Billings said.
It means he can now fulfill a promise he made to his family following the death of his son.
“I hadn’t been to the gravesite yet, it will be four years, so now I can go,” Billings said.
Until justice is served, Billings has promised to never give up reminding the community about the four lives lost.
“As a father that loves your child how would you feel,” Billings said.
(WATCH BELOW: Family searching for justice after man killed inside west Charlotte home)
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