NC Officers Shoot, Kill Man in Two County Pursuit

[Ken [NY]]

NC Officers Shoot, Kill Man in Two County Pursuit

Charlotte, North Carolina - 8/29/2001

A stabbing suspect in a stolen patrol car led police on a two-county
chase Tuesday that ended with a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer
firing two shots, killing the man.

Police said Joel Vance Nash, 37, threatened officers with a knife and
tried to run them over after he ran the car into a ditch off N.C.49 in
Cabarrus County.

The incident began about 3:45 a.m. on Violet Drive near Monroe Road,
just east of uptown. Teresa Ann Allen, 30, had been stabbed in the
chest several times at the Doral Apartments. Her daughter, 10, who had
also been stabbed, went to a nearby apartment.

She knocked three times.

"Can I please use your phone?" a neighbor, Corbin Brown, recalled the
girl saying. "My mom's been stabbed."

Brown, on his cell phone with a 911 operator, applied pressure to
Allen's chest wounds, as she lay on her bedroom floor covered with
blood. Allen's lung appeared punctured, he said.

"She was asking for medication to ease the pain," Brown said. "She
told me she had been stabbed four times."

Police said Allen identified her attacker and described the man's
vehicle before Medic took her to Carolinas Medical Center. She died
about 9:40 a.m.

The girl, stabbed in the abdomen, was in good condition at the
hospital late Tuesday.

Allen's relatives said the girl was stabbed when she struck her
mother's attacker with a candlestick holder.

The woman also had a 6-year-old son. He was at the apartment during
the stabbings but was not hurt. Allen's sister, who was at the
hospital Tuesday, is expected to care for the children. Police said
Nash was not the father of the children.

About an hour after the stabbings, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police went
to Nash's home in the 6800 block of Melody Lane off Plott Road in
northeast Charlotte.

Police said Nash ran from the house and got into a pickup. He drove
away and wrecked the pickup near Harrisburg and Robinson Church roads,
then ran into the woods.

Officers, using police dogs, spotted Nash about 9 a.m. He was holding
a knife to his throat, police said. Officers backed away, fearing Nash
would harm himself. That allowed him space to get to a squad car,
which Nash drove toward Cabarrus County.

Police alerted the N.C. Highway Patrol and Cabarrus County deputies
and began pursuing Nash. He drove the stolen police car about 20 miles
to N.C.49, where deputies had placed stop sticks, designed to puncture
tires, in the roadway. Nash swerved near U.S.601, possibly to get
around a deputy's squad car in front of him, and drove the car into a
ditch, said Cabarrus County Sheriff Brad Riley.

Officers tried to pull Nash from the squad car when he threatened them
with a knife, police said. He was trying to run down two officers with
the squad car when he was shot. The gunfire shattered the windshield.

Nash died at NorthEast Medical Center in Concord. He was the third
person shot and killed by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police since January
2000.

Authorities would not say whether the knife used to threaten police
was also the murder weapon. Allen's relatives said she had been
engaged to Nash but recently tried to end the relationship because he
had become abusive. Nash did not have a criminal history, authorities
said.

More than 30 officers from the N.C. Highway Patrol,
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and Cabarrus County Sheriff's
Office were involved. Deputies rerouted traffic, shutting down N.C.49
near Central Cabarrus High School until about 1:30 p.m.

According to friends, Nash lived alone and worked at Duke Energy.
Company officials said he was a printing press worker.

"Joel was a good Christian boy. He never drank. He never smoked," said
Joyce McCorkle, who said she is related to a couple who raised Nash
after his mother died when he was 2 years old. "He was in love with
that girl."

McCorkle said Nash was having trouble at work and recently began
seeing a psychiatrist there.

Police searched his home Tuesday and found evidence of several failed
suicide attempts. Police said the attempts occurred after the
stabbings.

Keith Bridges, a police spokesman, said it is too early to say whether
Nash wanted police to shoot him. Nash made comments toward officers
while holding the knife to his throat and again when they tried to
apprehend him in Cabarrus County, Bridges said. Police would not
elaborate.

Officers in the other two fatal shootings since January 2000 were
justified in their use of force, according to district attorneys who
reviewed the cases.

In June 2000, Allan Stroud was shot and killed outside a house on
Hilliard Drive. Police said Stroud, 43, aimed an assault rifle at
officers before he was killed.

Police said Stroud fatally shot his girlfriend and the woman's son
before he was shot by police.

Darryl Woodall Jr., 23, of Gastonia was shot on Interstate85 in west
Charlotte in January 2000 after police said he lunged at a state
trooper with a weapon police thought was a gun.

The N.C. State Bureau of Investigation and the Cabarrus County
Sheriff's Office are investigating Tuesday's shooting.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police are also conducting an internal
investigation, which is standard for police shootings.

Officer P.J. Wilson, with the department 11 years, has been placed on
administrative duty pending the outcome of the investigations.

State law and policies used by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police allow
officers to use deadly force if they fear their own lives are
threatened or they believe force is necessary to end a threat to the
life of a third party.

Police were not aware of previous problems at Allen's apartment. Angel
Martin, who lives next door, said the walls are thin, but she never
heard arguing.

"(Nash) had been here a few times recently," Martin said. "But
everything was quiet. At one point things were so quiet, I wondered if
she still lived there."

CHARLOTTE OBSERVER

Ken [NY]
--
Chairperson,
Department of Redundancy Department
____________________________________

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