Saturday, August 6, 2022

Friday Morning CMPD and GSO VCAT Shooting of Murder Suspect Alexander Weah

The following is from a local Winston Salem news source. Warning the photos are troubling and the facts in this case still evolving. 

Law enforcement officers fatally shot a man in the parking lot of a Clemmons convenience store Friday morning, in what authorities called an exchange of gunfire that occurred as they tried to arrest the man on a Charlotte murder charge.

But a woman who was with the man killed said that a law enforcement officer shot him in the back as he tried to flee.



The suspect has been identified as Alexander Weah, who was 26 and lived in Charlotte. Authorities have not released any information about the murder charge Weah was facing.

A Greensboro police officer, identified as M.J. Ambrosio, was injured when the suspect fired his gun, authorities said, and was taken to Atrium Wake Forest Baptist for treatment of what were described as non-life-threatening injuries. He was in stable condition Friday.

Greensboro police said the law enforcement operation was the effort of a task force including officers from Greensboro, Charlotte-Mecklenburg and the SBI.

Deputies from the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office assisted but none of its officers fired a weapon during the arrest effort, and none is on administrative leave, according to the sheriff’s office.

Dozens of officers from the various law enforcement agencies converged Friday morning on the parking lot of the Speedway convenience store, located on busy Lewisville-Clemmons Road just beside the Interstate 40 interchange. The shooting scene, behind yellow police tape, took in the convenience store parking lot, the Sudz Shoppe car wash next door, and part of the parking lot of the Super 8 hotel behind the Speedway.


Talaya Hinson, who described herself as Weah’s fiancée, said Weah tried to run away when he was confronted outside the store entry by an officer pointing a gun “in his face” and demanding that he get down. Hinson said the officer pursued Weah as he ran, shot at him four times and struck him twice.



“He was fired on first,” she said. “The only thing he did was run. I heard two shots, he (the officer) shot him in the back.”

Hinson said that after he was shot, Weah then pulled his own gun and fired a single shot before other officers fired multiple shots at Weah and brought him down to the pavement.

She said officers then stood by and watched as Weah died and made no effort to begin life-saving measures. At first, he was still breathing, she said.

“They were just standing around staring at him,” she said. “They turned him around on his back and put his hands behind his back and handcuffed him while he was gushing out blood.”

Weah’s body was still lying on the parking lot four hours after the shooting. It was removed around 2 p.m.

Hinson said that investigators told her that they fired on Weah because they saw that he had a gun. She said Weah had a license to carry and had a “gun on his hip.”

Hinson said law enforcement officers shot Weah “like a dog in the street.”

“I feel like they did what they did because he’s a Black male — that’s why they had to shoot him like that?” Hinson said.

Malika Weah said Friday in a telephone interview that that she had married Alexander Weah in 2019, but had been separated from him since May 10. She said that she has a year-old child from the marriage.

“Alexander was a good man who had a big heart,” she said. She said that he could get “hot-headed” if things didn’t go his way, but she didn’t see him as a violent person.

Originally from Liberia, Alexander Weah would send money back to Liberia for family members, she said. He had a job as a warehouse manager in Charlotte.

At the scene of the shooting on Friday, many officers of the N.C. Highway patrol also responded to what became a busy law enforcement scene, with dozens of officers engaged in various aspects of the probe. One officer was operating a drone that hovered over the crime scene during the morning.

Erin Wiggins, a spokeswoman for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, declined to release information about the Charlotte homicide, saying that police officials were trying to notify the victim’s family. She would not say when the murder happened. The police department referred all questions about the Clemmons shooting to the SBI. Angie Grube, a spokeswoman for the SBI, said she could not comment on certain aspects of the shooting because she did not know the answers and she referred some questions to other law-enforcement agencies.

The Greensboro police officers involved in the use of force are on administrative duty pending the outcome of an internal investigation.

Officials have not said what agencies fired weapons.

Hinson said she, her 4-year-old daughter and Weah had spent Thursday in Greensboro at the Wet’n Wild Emerald Pointe water park, then decided to spend another night in the area before going back to Charlotte. They checked in at the Super 8 behind the Speedway Thursday night. The way the shooting unfolded, Hinson believes officers must have known Weah was staying there.

Talaya Hinson sits in a booth at the Waffle House with her son, Christopher Little, as she watches law enforcement officers investigate the shooting and death of her fiancé, Alex Weah, at the Speedway on Lewisville-Clemmons Road, Friday morning, August 5, 2022. 

Friday morning, the couple checked out of the hotel and drove around to the Speedway to gas up and get some ginger ale for Hinson. Hinson said her daughter had just gone through the front entry of the store and she was getting ready to walk in as Weah held the door open for them.

Hinson said that when the officer with the gun approached and yelled at Weah, he pushed her inside the store and ran back out. Hinson said someone in the store grabbed her as if to hold her back, but that she struck that person and ran out.

“I ran out there too because I just wanted them to stop shooting at him,” she said. “I would say … I heard about four shots before Alex reached for his gun. He was running.”

She said she watched as Weah received a gunshot wound to the back that made him bleed. She said officers should have tried stunning Weah before shooting him.


Talaya Hinson talks with a law enforcement officer after the shooting and death of her fiancé, Alex Weah, at the Speedway on Lewisville-Clemmons Road, Friday morning, August 5, 2022. 

Hinson was able to leave in her car around 3 p.m. Friday after the SBI had processed the car for evidence in the case. Before leaving, she sat with family members for a while inside the Waffle House restaurant, where employees remembered seeing Hinson, her daughter and Weah the night before, when they came in to eat.

Patrick Boles, a cook at the Waffle House, recognized Hinson and gave her a big hug to comfort her. Boles said that there were people eating breakfast inside the business Friday morning when the gunfire erupted on the convenience store lot nearby.

“We had people over here with little kids,” Boles said, indicating the seats on the Speedway side of the Waffle House. “They were just as shocked as they could be. There were people trying to get out of the way.”

Friday afternoon, another employee at the restaurant said it was disrespectful for the authorities to leave Weah’s body on the parking lot as long as they did.

“What I didn’t like is that it took so long for the coroner to come and pick up the body,” said the employee, who declined to identify herself because she wants to maintain her privacy.

Hinson is carrying Weah’s unborn child, she said. She has a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday to find out the gender of the baby.

“It was going to be a surprise, so that’s why I wanted to wait,” she said.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

More straight up unlawful justice by CMPD and cops in NC. Ever hear of a trial? Cold blooded murder in front of his pregnant partner.

I hope she gets thousands in a settlement against all the PD's involved. A wonderful day at Wet n Wild turned into a nightmare. Just serve a warrant the normal way.

Anonymous said...

I'd say Friday was a good day.

Anonymous said...

I'd say about right. Cops shooting another poor, innocent man in the back. He just bout ready for med skewl, he be turnin his life roun. His kids dunt need this, ya feel me?

Anonymous said...

Look at this poor mother to be. This is the target of Trump's America. Where will she turn to help raise that poor child to be?