Days after a shooting at Eastover Terrace Apartments, which wounded three men and resulted in the arrest of two others, residents of the community say the incident weighs heavy on their hearts and minds.
At the Clinton apartment complex, residents are dealing with the aftermath of the shooting, which took place in broad daylight Monday afternoon. While no deaths occurred, the events have still taken a toll on those who occupy the apartments near the site of the incident. Some of those in the apartment complex shared their perspectives on the events of this week as well as details of how the shooting has impacted the neighborhood.
All those interviewed were female and asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons.
“It’s been really hard the past few days,” said one complex resident. “It was a very traumatic experience. We still don’t really know what happened. I was inside when I heard the gunshots. I was looking out the window and saw people pulling their kids inside. That’s when it really clicked that this was real, that this was actually happening.”
Police arrived at the complex Monday just after 1 p.m., responding to reports of shots fired. When they arrived, officers found three victims with gunshot wounds — Desteen Howard, 28, of Clinton, Isaiah Cunningham, 27, of Clinton and Brandon Bell, 37, of Goldsboro. Two of the victims were airlifted to local hospitals, while the third was treated on-site.
According to Clinton Police Chief Adrian Mathews, all three victims were still in the hospital, in stable condition, at press time.
On Tuesday afternoon, in collaboration with the Sampson County Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team, a search warrant was executed at 611 Eastover Terrace, and Ricardo Ramsey, 20, of Wallace, was taken into custody and charged later in the day with three felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, six counts of discharging a weapon into an occupied dwelling and discharging a firearm within the city limits.
Authorities also arrested 19-year-old Kyrian Davis of Clinton, who was at the residence when officers executed the search warrant. Davis was charged with carrying a concealed weapon. Mathews has not said whether Davis had anything to do with the shooting.
Despite the arrest, neighbors in the apartment complex are still anxious.
“None of us feel safe,” said another Eastover resident. “It really messed a lot of people up around here. I had seen one of the boys arrested walking around here a couple times before. The day when they were arrested, they stepped out of the house and the cops were on them just that fast. When they put them up against the cop car, I had seen them laughing. They were laughing like this was a game.”
“I feel for their families,” added a third resident. “They were about 19-20 years old. They could’ve been my kids. Nowadays, you can buy handguns at 18. I remember when it used to be 21. I think that’s why we’re seeing more incidents like these pop up. Also, here, there’s not really any security cameras around or anything like that, so there’s not really any safety measures to prevent something like this.”
Police have not released any information on a motive nor details about what transpired leading up to the shooting.
But, a GoFundMe page, set up for one of the victims, Desteen Howard, notes that he and the two other victims were on the porch of his residence when “a gunman approached and began firing shots at the three of them.”
The page can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-desteens-recovery-journey.
According to the page, which was started to raise funds for Howard’s “recovery journey,” he suffered multiple gunshots wounds, including “serious injuries to his face and hand,” requiring surgery. The page also notes that Howard faces a long recovery.
Police, however, have not confirmed that information.
“The investigation is still ongoing; we welcome any information from the public,” stressed Mathews. “We don’t really have a timeline for how long it will take us to find a motive.”
The department is urging anyone with information about this incident to contact the Clinton Police Department at 910-592-3105. They may also provide anonymous information through the Police Department tip service by texting 847411, and beginning the message with ‘tipcpd.’