CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — A series of shootings, a kidnapping, and a police chase left one man dead – the suspect himself – after chaos unfolded across two Charlotte neighborhoods late Thursday afternoon, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police.
CMPD said the suspect, identified by neighbors as Joseph Andrade, shot two people, killing one of them, before forcing his way into a home, kidnapping a woman, and fleeing in her car.
One neighbor shared a chilling doorbell video appearing to show Andrade just moments before the violence began. In the footage, the man rings the doorbell, fidgets with what looks like a gun in one pocket and ammo in the other, then starts loading the weapon.
“That’s what I got scared of, that he was going to shoot my door down or come into my house,” said neighbor Jesse Ortiz, who lives on Hoskins Road.
Ortiz said he first heard gunfire, then a crash, and later came face-to-face with the suspect.
“It was like looking at a wild animal,” Ortiz told Queen City News. “It was just so weird, he was like another human to me, but it just felt like looking into an animal’s eye.”
Police said Andrade kidnapped a woman after the shootings and forced her into her own car.
The police report says Andrade stole three cars. He’s accused of crashing one of them into a construction site on Hoskins.
The builder told Queen City News that police had to pull the vehicle out of the wreckage just to reach the victim safely.
Investigators said Andrade led officers on a roughly three-mile chase, firing at patrol cars along the way. The pursuit ended at Freedom Drive and Morehead Street, where CMPD said Andrade got out of the car and continued shooting, prompting officers to return fire, killing him.
Detectives are still working to piece together exactly when the kidnapped woman managed to break free, but for neighbors, the sense of fear and disbelief remains.
Source: Fox 8 News Channel
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