Four juveniles arrived at UNC Hospitals with gunshot wounds Thursday after a shooting near Cole Park Plaza in Chatham County.
A Plaza Drive resident called the Chatham County Sheriff's Office around 1:26 p.m. after hearing a vehicle pass and then gunshots, the News & Observer reported. Hospital staff contacted investigators to say the four had come in wounded. The juveniles drove themselves and told staff they had been shot near Cole Park Plaza, near Plaza Drive.
Investigators determined the shooting started as a disagreement and a fight Wednesday evening. The Sheriff's Office said the incident appears to be isolated and that there is no ongoing threat to the community. Deputies were still investigating as of Friday evening.
The shooting comes amid a broader statewide toll: more than 525 North Carolina children ages 17 and younger died from firearm injuries between 2020 and 2024. While the state Child Fatality Task Force says child firearm death rates have recently declined, the 2024 rate remained 2.5 times the 2015 rate. Its 2026 report renews calls for sustained funding for a statewide safe-storage initiative and changes to the state’s child-access prevention law. The task force’s report does not link those statewide trends to this shooting.
UNC Hospitals, where the juveniles went, is one of North Carolina’s Level I-designated trauma centers, and the state lists the affiliated N.C. Children’s Hospital as an American College of Surgeons-verified Level I pediatric center. The designations provide context for the Chapel Hill hospital’s role in the region’s trauma-care system; they do not indicate the severity of the juveniles’ injuries. North Carolina’s trauma-center listing identifies both designations.
