The Killing Continues

Happy Boxing Day!

From the local paper:

A homicide reported in northwest Charlotte on Christmas Eve is the second high-profile act of gun violence this year on a residential street that is scarcely two blocks long, investigators say. 

Few details have been released by police about the latest shooting, including the identity of the victim. The killing happened around 11 a.m. Sunday in the 1600 block of Flagler Lane. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officers responded to reports of an assault with a deadly weapon and found someone with gunshot wounds in a vehicle. The victim died at the scene, police say. 

Details about a suspect, or additional information about the case, have not been released. 

The shooting comes nine months after a 13-year-old boy was wounded when someone sprayed the family’s Flagler Lane home with gunfire, CMPD reported. He survived after being taken to a local hospital with a bullet wound to the leg, officials said. The boy’s mother and two other children were in the home when the shots were fired around 1:30 a.m. on March 24, CMPD said. “At least 10” shots were fired, the paper reported in March. 

Charlotte's year to date homicide number is somewhat disputed with one week until the end of the year the number should remain below 100.

As of Wednesday December 27, 2023 the body count stands at 81 including justified. 

Cedar Note: 

I was actually thinking of mocking "Boxing Day" when I pulled the latest homicide story from the local paper.  

To be clear I've always been a fan of Muhammad Ali. His appearance at the opening ceremony at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta where he refused defeat or pity as a victim of parkinson's to a flight on USAir out of Charlotte a few year's prior.

But it was the March 1971 fight that cast Ail as "the greatest" forever. UK Columnist Frank Keating put it in perspective back in 2011:

After 14 rounds at dead-level even, both warriors were spent. Well almost, for Frazier at the very last bent low at center-stage and came up with, well, the kitchen sink … an exquisitely timed rock-knuckled left hook of bestial accuracy which smashed into Ali's jaw so grievously that the right side of the big man's face was wonkily out of shape even before the back of his burgundy trunks hit the floor and the little flamboyant red tassels on his boots waved limply up at the ring lights.

The Big Mouth had been shut good and proper. Over and out. The passing Ali legend had, surely, now passed.

What happened in the next few moments, however, was, utterly to confound and rout Ali's enemies and, overwhelmingly, to recharge and reward his believers. He got up. He lived. And so did the legend grow.

By miraculously clawing himself to his feet and attempting to mount a counterattack, the stricken Ali – loser, but still champ – had, in fact, won everything. For eternity. Whatever was to come, that finale in New York settled Ali's imperishable place in history.