A 27-year-old Rocky Mount man is behind bars without bond on attempted first-degree murder and multiple firearms charges after police say he opened fire into an occupied home in the Happy Hill neighborhood early Monday, seriously wounding someone inside. Aatavious Iyhonte Finkley is accused of using a handgun to fire into a residence in the 700 block of West Thomas Street, where he himself had listed an address, according to N.C. district court records.
Rocky Mount police responded to the shooting around 1 a.m. Monday, according to a police release cited by the Rocky Mount Telegram. Nash County 911 emergency radio traffic referenced a shooting near North Howell and North Tillery streets, and the victim was found shot in the Happy Hill area, a historic residential district bounded in part by West Thomas Street, North Harris Street, and Sunset Avenue, according to City of Rocky Mount Development Services planning records. Magistrate orders filed in Nash County specify that Finkley used a Hi-Point .380-caliber handgun in the shooting, per a report from Fighting Crime News and Who's Wanted.
The person who was shot was transported to ECU Health Medical Center in Greenville and was listed in stable condition, police said. ECU Health is the only Level I Adult Trauma Center in North Carolina located east of Raleigh and Interstate 95, serving a 29-county region, according to East Carolina University's Brody School of Medicine — underscoring the severity of the injuries that prompted the long-distance transport for care.
A Decade of Violent Charges Across Three Counties
Finkley now faces 10 felony counts stemming from the shooting: attempted first-degree murder, seven counts of felony shooting into an occupied dwelling, one count of felony assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon. He remains in custody at the Nash County Detention Center without bond, according to Nash County sheriff's records cited by the Telegram.
His record stretches back nearly a decade. N.C. public safety records show Finkley was convicted of misdemeanor assault inflicting serious bodily injury in Macon County — in the far southwestern part of North Carolina — in 2016. In 2020, he was convicted in Wake County of felony discharging a firearm into occupied property, along with misdemeanor intentional or malicious injury to real property; Nash County court records show that conviction carried a sentence of 25 to 42 months in state prison followed by 18 months of probation, according to Fighting Crime News and Who's Wanted. Then in 2023, he was convicted in Nash County of felony attempted second-degree kidnapping and felony breaking and entering with intent to terrorize or injure, following an arrest that also included charges of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury and communicating threats, per the same Facebook report.
What the Charges Could Mean Under State Law
Under North Carolina General Statutes, attempted first-degree murder is classified as a Class B2 felony, carrying substantial long-term prison exposure if Finkley is convicted, according to the Patrick Roberts Law Blog. Discharging a weapon into occupied property is ordinarily a Class E felony, but the offense is elevated to a Class D felony when the property is an occupied dwelling — as in Finkley's seven counts — and can rise to a Class C felony if serious bodily injury results, per an explainer from the Olsinski Law Firm.
Possessing a firearm as a convicted felon is typically a Class G felony carrying up to 47 months in prison, but North Carolina Session Law 2025-71 created an aggravated variant that elevates the charge to a Class C felony if a firearm is discharged during a felony attempt, according to the UNC School of Government. That 2025 legislative change specifically targets armed repeat offenders like Finkley, whose 2020 gun conviction already forms the legal basis for his felon-in-possession charge.
Rocky Mount's Rising Homicide Toll
The West Thomas Street shooting lands amid a troubling local backdrop. During a city council briefing in January, Rocky Mount Police Chief McCoy reported that while overall Part-1 crime dropped 14%, homicides in the city rose sharply from six in 2024 to 16 in 2025. In response, the department deployed a specialized Community Action Team in November and expanded joint multi-agency search details with Nash County and the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation, according to the police briefing report.
Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to contact Rocky Mount police at 252-972-1411, or submit an anonymous tip by texting RMPD and the tip to 847411. This is the latest in a string of violent incidents Hoodline has tracked in Rocky Mount this year, following a fatal Cokey Road shooting in July and an officer-involved shooting on Sunset Avenue in April.
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