CONCORD, N.C. — Family members are mourning the loss of a loved one after he was hit and killed by an impaired driver.
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The Concord Police Department says John Stevenson, 35, was hit while walking home along Davidson Highway on Friday afternoon. He was just a few steps from his back door when he was struck.
Officers say the driver who hit him, 41-year-old David Royce Brown, has been arrested and charged with habitual impaired driving and second-degree murder.
Stevenson’s family told veteran crime reporter Glenn Counts that he had just gotten off of work and was walking home when the incident happened. They believe Brown should not have been on the street, given his record.
“It’s a flawed system because of which my brother is not here anymore,” Damon Brooks, Stevenson’s brother, said. “How can you walk down the side of the road at 1:27 p.m. in the middle of the day and get hit by a drunk driver?”
In North Carolina, the law says a person has to have three DWI convictions in the past 10 years to get the charge.
Demyra Jackson is the niece of the victim and says she was very close to her uncle. She told Counts the incident has had a devastating impact on her family.
“He took away a son, a father, an uncle, a brother and that’s just to name a few things of what my uncle was to all of us,” Jackson said.
Brown is currently in the custody of the Cabarrus County Jail under no bond. Jackson says she hopes the system doesn’t go easy on Brown.
“Are we gonna let him out so he could do this again, he needs to be in jail forever,” she said.
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