‘They don’t care’: Witnesses recall chaotic scene after crash in South End

CHARLOTTE — Police still haven’t said what exactly happened Thursday morning in a section of S. Tryon Street, but witnesses nearby described a moment of chaos.

According to those witnesses, it all started with a shooting near a Valero gas station near Remount Road.

“Broad daylight, they don’t care,” said Shalamar Smith.

Smith told Channel 9′s Jonathan Lowe that she was just trying to have a moment of peace inside her South End apartment Thursday morning.

“Just taking my little bubble bath like I do every day -- ‘bow bow bow bow,’ I said oh my goodness is somebody shooting or get in an accident?” Smith said.

It turns out it may have been both.

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John McMahan was at work in a staffing agency near the intersection when he saw a speeding car jump the curb and head straight for a power pole.

“They just bam, took it out, and from the bottom it just fell right down, and the next thing I know, they’re jumping out of the car,” McMahan told Lowe.

He said three people got out of the vehicle and took off running, but then they returned.

“They nonchalantly came back, they were screaming back and forth, ‘We gotta go, we gotta go,’” McMahan said.

But McMahan says they weren’t in that much of a hurry to get away, saying they were rummaging through the car “trying to find whatever they were looking for” before police could arrive.

McMahan said he believes the suspects got away after that.

It’s a wild story of senseless midday crime that Smith says doesn’t make sense for an area that’s seeing so much development.

“On this side, it’s al to of bad activity, and I still don’t understand how they can build all the nice stuff on this side,” Smith said.

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Witnesses also said they saw another vehicle pick up those suspects. They said it didn’t appear that any of them were injured.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department hasn’t said if they’ve identified any suspects or made any arrests. We’ll update this story when more information is made available.

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