RALEIGH, N.C. – Raleigh police arrested a 21-year-old man after they said he shot a woman in the neck and assaulted a pregnant woman on Wednesday afternoon.
At 12:20 p.m., officers responded to a shooting call in the 7000 block of Barlows Knoll Street and blocked off the street for some time.
“It was like pow, pow. It paused and then I heard pow, pow.” said neighbor Cedric Thrash.
Responding officers found 38-year-old Torri Ameaka Boyd suffering from a gunshot wound to her neck. Boyd was transported to WakeMed for treatment.
Jaquan Deandre Avery-Kennedy, 21, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury in relation to the shooting. Police said Avery-Kennedy and Boyd knew each other before the shooting.
“By the time police made it here. The people out here were like there he is, ‘there he is’ He had his gun. Police kept saying ‘let me see your hands. Let me see your hands,” Thrash said.
Avery-Kennedy was also charged with assault on a female and battery on an unborn child. That charge stems from an incident with Diarra Monia Patterson, 21, prior to the shooting. Patterson is pregnant, police said.
Avery-Kennedy has been transported to the Wake County Detention Center.
According to County Bureau of Identification, this is Avery-Kennedy’s seventh arrest in the last five years.
As for Thrash, he admits violence in his community has been on the rise, but he’s hopeful that can and will change.
“We raise our families here. We believe in the values of the properties here. And I just wish the people that don’t value this neighborhood, don’t value battery ridge I wish they wouldn’t come in here,” Thrash said.
