A Charlotte Man Shot a Stranger’s Toddler in the Back, His Reasoning Will Infuriate You

From the grocery store to the shopping mall to church, parking spots can be hard to come by, especially ones close to the entrance. But one North Carolina man is accused of taking his parking frustrations out on a complete stranger and his toddler over the most senseless and pettiest reason. Now, he’s been charged with multiple felony charges.

It was late Sunday (Oct. 19) in Charlotte when a man, driving his white GMC Savana G2500 work van, pulled into an apartment complex parking space on Sloping Oaks Road, per local news station KBTX 3. His three-year-old son was sitting in the passenger seat when he had backed his van in. The man says suddenly, out of nowhere, a stranger started “shooting at his vehicle for an unknown reason.” 

At least six shots rang out, and one of them hit his toddler in the back, Charlotte news station WBTV reported. The father sped off, called 911, and later met with police. 

Turns out, the man accused of letting off the shots, James Raeford, said he did so because the man “parked too close to his vehicle,” according to Law & Crime. The 39-year-old approached cops outside a magistrate’s office about 15 minutes away from the parking lot and confessed he “was involved in a shooting,” the outlet reported.

Raeford told authorities how he had just bought a new car– a mid-2000s Infiniti Q50– and had backed it into a parking spot when the white van pulled into a space right next to his, “leaving only 4-5 inches of room.” Because of the tight parking, Law & Crime reported that Raeford said he “would not be able to enter his vehicle,” so he told the man to move his van but he never replied. 

But that’s not all.

The suspect alleged the man tried to run him over and “that was why he shot” his “black Taurus G3 9mm”– complete with a green laser on it. Law & Crime reported he confessed to “aiming for the driver seat but shot toward the front passenger seat,” hitting the toddler in the lower back. The boy is expected to survive.

City council member Malcolm Graham said, per WBTV, how the shooting was yet another unnecessary escalation over a simple conflict.

“We continue to struggle with conflict resolution in Charlotte,” Graham said, according to WBTV. “There are too many guns on the street for sure, and too many individuals willing to pull the trigger.”

Raeford, who authorities say fled to his parent’s home where he hid the firearm “inside his father’s golf bag inside the garage,” is charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill/inflicting serious injury, and six counts of discharging a weapon into an occupied property– one count for each bullet.

He’s being held on a $500,000 bond and his next court date is Nov. 5.