GASTONIA, N.C. — It’s been just over a year since a deadly police shooting rocked a neighborhood in Gastonia, and the community is still reeling from the gunfire.
Channel 9′s Ken Lemon went back to the community Friday and heard from neighbors who say they’re still dealing with the trauma from that day. They can’t forget because it happened right outside of their homes, yards from their front doors.
It started with a chase, then a car shifting gears on N. Edgemont Avenue one year and one day ago. Onkevious Thomas told Lemon that it feels like just yesterday to him.
“I just feel like a whole year and ain’t nobody forgot about it, and ain’t nobody going to forget about it,” Thomas said. “Nobody’s going to forget about it, even if it’s been ten years.”
Thomas knew Jason Lipscomb, the man who was shot and killed last year. They were childhood friends.
He went back to the neighborhood on Friday to visit his friends who live near the fateful spot.
“This is where it happened at,” Thomas said. “I have been knowing that little boy since he was five, I don’t even feel good about coming out here.”
Thomas said because of that, when he comes to visit friends, he tries not to stay long.
He knows police were called to the neighborhood last year because Lipscomb was suspected of kidnapping.
Police said Lipscomb picked up an acquaintance’s child from a day care and brought the child to his father’s home. Police said Lipscomb then tried to hit an officer as he tried to drive away. That’s when the shots were fired, and Lipscomb was killed.
“Just because he did something wrong doesn’t mean he deserves to die,” Thomas said. “That could have been my son, that could have been me, that could have been my brother.”
Thomas believes the officers should have been disciplined, fired, or charged. That didn’t happen.
Lipscomb’s father, who lived in the neighborhood, has since moved. He’s one of many tenants who left after the shooting.
(WATCH: Veteran files lawsuit against Gastonia police for 2021 arrest, shocking of dog with stun gun)
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