ICYMI: Family Of Man Killed By CMPD Raising Money To Bury Him

CHARLOTTE, NC -- The family of a suicidal man fatally shot by a Charlotte police officer Feb. 2 after he charged at him with a knife is seeking financial help for burying the man they say suffered from mental illness.

Charlie Shoupe, 27, was shot and killed by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Officer Daniel Flynn last Friday after the officer responded to a 911 call for help for a man who was attempting suicide. The caller said Shoupe, who was armed with a knife, was harming himself, and first responders on the scene at Lake Ridge Apartments in the 3200 block of Timberbrook Drive said he was uncooperative with their attempts to provide medical care.

Shoupe told first responders he wanted police to shoot him, a CMPD police report said.

According to Shoupe’s cousin Candice Belle Saunders, the slain man suffered from paranoid Schizophrenia, and his family believe he may have also been undiagnosed Autistic, she said in a GoFundMe page created Feb. 6 to help pay for his funeral. “The money will be used to help pay for his funeral,” Saunders wrote.

As of Wednesday afternoon, $200 had been donated.

“The police were aware of his situation as they had been called there before and just in the previous days,” Saunders said.

According to the Charlotte Observer, CMPD confirmed police were at his home Feb. 1, but would not detail the 911 call that prompted it. CMPD also responded to 911 calls at the home Jan. 19 and Dec. 30, 2017, and CMPD’s “Crisis Intervention Team” met with Shoupe before he was hospitalized in December, the newspaper said.

Members of the CIT were on their way to the apartment complex Friday, the paper added.

CMPD Officer Daniel Flynn, however, arrived before them at the scene and Shoupe charged at him with the knife in his hand. Shoupe did not comply with Flynn's commands to drop the weapon and continued to charge at the officer who was trying to put distance between them, the CMPD report said. When he closed that distance, Flynn fired his service weapon, striking Shoupe.

Paramedics on the scene transported Shoupe to Carolinas Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead.

Witnesses to the incident told a Fox 46 reporter on the scene that the white male subject ran at CMPD officers with the knife while screaming, "shoot me."

Flynn has been placed on administrative leave while the Internal Affairs Bureau investigates whether CMPD policies were followed. This is standard procedure during any officer involved shooting, the department said.

"This is a criminal investigation, and we're doing a parallel internal investigation to make sure no policies were violated," CMPD Chief Kerr Putney told reporters at a Friday afternoon news conference, The Charlotte Observer reported.

CMPD asks that anyone with information about this incident contact Crime Stoppers at 704-334-1600.

The GoFundMe page can be found here.

Photo courtesy of GoFundMe