CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Early afternoon on April 29, Terry Hughes Jr. was outside his home on Galway Drive in Charlotte when he saw the U.S. Marshals Service task force pull up. The wanted man ran inside and armed himself with an assault-style rifle, according to a report released by the Mecklenburg County district attorney Thursday.
In the minutes that followed, Hughes would fatally shoot four law enforcement officers and injure four more, officials said.
In the report, District Attorney Spencer Merriweather cleared the officers who returned fire and killed Hughes, and gave new details about what happened that day on Galway Drive in Charlotte.
There were 18 members of the task force that went out that day to arrest Hughes, the DA said. When Hughes ran inside, they surrounded the home and used a loudspeaker to call for him to come out and surrender.
Then Hughes began to fire at the officers, first from an upstairs rear window, then he moved to a side window, the report said. He alternated positions as he shot at the task force members with a Radical Arms RF-15 rifle.
"DUSM Thomas Weeks Jr. was struck as he took cover with Task Force Officer (TFO) Samuel Poloche behind a tree in the backyard. TFO William Alden Elliott and another task force officer were struck at the fence line on the west side of the home," the report states.
At 1:33 p.m., the one member of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department on the task force radioed that "shots had been fired, and officers were down."
"By 1:35 p.m., the first of hundreds of CMPD officers, including Officer Joshua Eyer, began arriving on scene to assist and extract the fallen officers," the report states. "Officer Eyer and numerous other CMPD officers approached the rear of the decedent’s residence through the backyard of an abutting home, searching for a safe route to get to the three downed officers."
"At 1:46 p.m., Officer Eyer and others made their way to the tree in the backyard of the residence where DUSM Thomas Weeks Jr., had been struck. Officer Eyer and TFO Samuel Poloche were struck by additional shots fired by the decedent as they took cover behind this tree. Three additional CMPD officers were also shot as they took cover in various locations behind the house," according to the DA.
At about 1:50 p.m., Hughes, still armed with the rifle, jumped from a second floor window, the report states.
"Officers in front of the residence issued commands to drop the gun, then opened fire, killing the decedent," according to the DA.
An autopsy report said Hughes was shot 10 times.
Other officers in the back of the home did not know Hughes was dead and saw movement in a window, the DA wrote. One fired a single shot at the window.
"This shot caused officers who had received the earlier communication that the decedent was down to believe that there was an additional shooter in the residence. Over the course of the next ten minutes, officers in the rear of the residence discharged cover fire at the rear window of the home as they evacuated TFO Poloche, Officer Eyer, and DUSM Weeks Jr.," the DA said.
"At 1:59 p.m., CMPD officers used an armored utility vehicle to drive to the side fence line and evacuate TFO Elliott," the report states.
At 2:39 p.m., Hughes' girlfriend called 911 to tell police she was hiding in the closet with her 17-year-old daughter, according to the DA.
Elliott was taken to Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center and pronounced dead at 2:20 p.m.
Poloche, Weeks and Eyer were all transported to Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center.
Poloche was pronounced dead at 2:25 p.m. Weeks underwent surgery but was pronounced dead at 3:10 p.m. Eyer also underwent surgery and was pronounced dead at 8:25 p.m.
Hughes fired 29 rounds from the rifle that day, the DA said. Twenty-three officers returned fire, firing 340 rounds, according to the report.
"This incident signifies the single deadliest assault on law enforcement in our community’s history," the DA wrote in the report.