Police say no one was hit after three shots shattered a car carrying five people on Freedom Drive.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A 20-year-old man is accused of chasing his girlfriend and four other people through west Charlotte and firing into their car after a prank call made him think she was being unfaithful, according to police and court records.
Shyhied Ivey now faces five counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, along with charges of discharging a firearm into an occupied conveyance in operation, domestic violence and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The case drew quick attention in Charlotte because investigators say the alleged victims included Ivey’s girlfriend and because the shooting followed a joke that appears to have spun out of control within minutes. His next known court date is Apr. 23.
Investigators say the episode began late on April 4, when the woman and four friends went to Camp North End for food at about 11:30 p.m. The group then drove back to the 2700 block of Columbus Circle. There, according to the affidavit, the woman and one male friend decided to play a prank on Ivey, who had been dating her for about five months. The friend called Ivey and pretended he was with her romantically. The affidavit says Ivey was able to see her location on his phone, which officers say helps explain how he found the group after they left again. Police say the friends were then driving on Berryhill Road toward Freedom Drive when Ivey began following them in a black Nissan sedan and tailgating the red Nissan Altima they were riding in. The woman later told officers that Ivey sounded angry on the phone and tried to make them pull over as he drove behind them.
The affidavit says the situation grew more dangerous before the final burst of gunfire. The woman told police she saw Ivey fire what appeared to be a handgun into the air while he was still pursuing the car. Officers say the chase ended at the intersection of Freedom Drive and Wesley Village Road, where Ivey allegedly pulled up beside the Altima and fired three shots into it before driving away. The occupants were able to leave the intersection and get back to Columbus Circle, where officers met them about 10 minutes later. A traffic camera, police wrote, showed the black car next to the red one at 11:38 p.m. and captured “three bright bursts” coming from the black Nissan. Investigators said the shots shattered glass in the Altima. Police did not report any physical injuries, and the available court papers do not say what kind of gun was used, whether shell casings were recovered at the scene, or whether investigators believe more than one weapon was involved.
Charging papers give the case a tight but vivid outline. Five assault counts line up with the five people inside the car, a sign that prosecutors are treating each person in the Altima as a separate alleged victim. The firearm charge tied to an occupied conveyance rests on the allegation that the car was still in operation when the shots were fired. The domestic violence count reflects that Ivey’s girlfriend was among the people in the car. Police also say Ivey is a convicted felon, a detail that forms the basis for the possession count. Authorities booked him into the Mecklenburg County Detention Center on Wednesday. What remains unclear is whether investigators have recovered the gun they believe was used, whether Ivey made any statement after his arrest, and whether prosecutors expect to add or adjust charges after reviewing more evidence. The public record now available also does not describe any attorney for Ivey or show any public response from him to the allegations.
The case also carries a wider legal backdrop because officers say Ivey was already barred from having a firearm. Earlier Charlotte crime coverage tied him to vehicle related cases, including a 2024 arrest in a hospital parking deck break-in investigation. Local reporting on this new case said he had been serving supervised probation in an earlier matter and that recent probation issues had also been reported. Even without a reported injury, the new allegations are serious because North Carolina treats shooting into an occupied moving vehicle as a felony, and the assault counts accuse Ivey of acting with intent to kill. The fact pattern could matter as prosecutors decide how aggressively to move the case, especially if they argue that the gunfire followed a sustained pursuit and not a sudden roadside confrontation. For now, the known record suggests a sequence that started with a taunting phone call, moved through location sharing and tailgating, and ended with gunfire on a main Charlotte road.
The human details in the file are spare but striking. The woman and her friends had just been out getting food. Within a short time, they were telling police that another car had closed in beside them and bullets had broken the glass near where they were sitting. The male friend who helped make the prank call later told officers he got a text from Ivey at 1:32 a.m. that read, “stop playin wimme bro.” That line, brief and casual on its face, became one of the last concrete pieces of the timeline set out in the affidavit. Investigators have not said whether the text was sent before or after Ivey was identified as the suspect, and they have not described any later contact between the group and Ivey. Police also have not said whether any businesses or homes near the intersection reported hearing the shots. That leaves the traffic camera, the damaged car and the statements from the five occupants as the clearest public account of what happened in the minutes after the prank call.
As of Sunday, the case remained at the charging stage, with Ivey accused but not tried and no injuries reported. The next public milestone is his Apr. 23 court appearance in Mecklenburg County, where a judge is expected to review the case’s status and any early procedural steps.