Victim's brother says Durham shooting was accidental

Christopher "C.J." Hembry, 14, was shot in the chest in a parking area of the Scotland Manor townhouses complex on Kilarney Drive, off Ross Road in east Durham.

"I’ve never seen anything like that, never seen anyone get shot right in front of my face, especially my little brother," 19-year-old Daequan Dixon said. "I’m still hurt and shaken."

Dixon said he had pulled into the parking area with a carload of people, and a gun that a "friend's friend" was playing with discharged.

C.J. had walked up to the car to talk to the people inside when he was shot, Dixon said.

"It happened so fast. Guess he was playing with it, didn’t know it was loaded, and then it went off," he said. "I’m thinking it missed my little brother, but he turned around, and I saw the bullet coming out his back."

Chaos ensued as frantic parents scrambled to get their children inside.

"All I know is the kids were outside playing, and all the sudden, it happened," one woman told a 911 dispatcher.

Three people called 911 and pleaded with dispatchers to send an ambulance as quickly as possible.

"Where’s the help? We need them here now. Get them here now, please," one man said.

"It was craziness going on out here," Dixon said. "I wasn’t focused on nothing else because of my brother. All my attention was on him."

Dispatchers walked witnesses through how to stanch the flow of blood from the gunshot wound and to keep C.J. calm until help arrived.

C.J. had made it through surgery and was stable at Duke University Hospital, although he was in a lot of pain, Dixon said.

"He’s conscious. My mom said she talked to him," he said.

One witness told a 911 dispatcher that the shooter drove off in a red car, but he wasn't sure where they went. Police haven't yet named any suspects or made an arrest in the case.

"(The guy) should have never had a loaded gun around my brother, should’ve never had it, period, around me because I don’t like guns," Dixon said. "There’s no forgiveness about that."

C.J. is the third Durham youth to be shot in the past month. Deisy Medina, 10, was sleeping in her bed when she was wounded by a bullet fired from the apartment upstairs, while Kamari Munerlyn, 7, was killed last week when someone fired shots into the SUV in which he was riding.

"Lately, all we've been hearing about is kids being shot," said Patrice Patterson, who lives on Kilarney Drive with her three children. "That's why I try to keep mine close to me at all times."