North Carolina Man Shoots Repeat Burglar, Who Then Claims to Be Drive-by Victim

An elderly North Carolina man prevented his home from being burglarized yet again by the same people when he shot one of them as the man attempted to break into the house earlier this month.

The injured suspect then pretended to be a victim of a drive-by shooting only to see his story unravel in no time flat. As soon as he got out of the hospital, he was arrested and charged with multiple crimes.

Scat, Burglar

Shortly after 7:00 a.m. on July 12, a man attempted to break into 74-year-old Donald Bolynn’s house in Gastonia, about 22 miles west of Charlotte. Security-camera footage shows the man, identified by police as 57-year-old Cedric Ford, repeatedly attempting to gain entry to the house via a door and a window. At one point, Ford tried breaking down the door with his posterior. He later began pushing an air-conditioning unit out of a window.

Bolynn suffers from several health problems and is hard of hearing. However, he told WBTV that Ford’s

banging was so intense, he did hear something or someone outside of his house.

“Got up off the couch and come to the front door and looked out. I didn’t see nothing,” Bolynn said.

Bolynn said he then saw a man at the window and fired a single shot, hitting Ford in the chest.

“That’s when I got my gun and shot,” Bolynn said.

According to WCNC, “Bolynn’s niece, Crystal Ellis, said the ordeal shook her uncle badly, describing how frightening it was for him to witness someone trying to force entry into his home.”

Bolynn, who quickly reported the incident to authorities, told police he wasn’t sure whether he’d hit Ford, but he was very sure he’d put an end to the attempted break-in. He also said Ford and his girlfriend, 47-year-old Sanja Stallings, had tried to burglarize and rob him multiple times over the previous month.

This time, thanks to a good guy with a gun, they were foiled.

Shot on Location

Police say Ford and Stallings drove to a nearby gas station and called 911. When officers arrived, the pair claimed Ford was the victim of a drive-by shooting by someone in a white car.

Detectives began investigating and soon learned Ford and Stallings were not the innocents they portrayed themselves to be. For starters, they were suspects in a July 2 robbery on the same street as Bolynn’s residence. On top of that, surveillance technology pinpointed the shot that hit Ford to the vicinity of Bolynn’s house, not the location where Ford claimed he was attacked.

Under its Flock Camera initiative, the Gastonia Police Department has 158 gunshot-detection receivers located throughout the city. Knowing the public’s justifiable fear of being constantly under Big Brother’s watch, the department claims the devices “DO NOT record audio all the time; they ‘sleep’ until an impulsive sound triggers them,” then notify the Gastonia Police Real Time Crime Center of the noise.

In this case, the “impulsive sound” was the shot that struck Ford. The detection devices picked it up and triangulated to determine where it occurred. They concluded that it had come from within about 100 feet of Bolynn’s home. Furthermore, it was fired at 7:14 a.m., just after the video showed Ford trying to break into the house. (The released footage does not include the shooting.) Another camera caught Ford getting into a car with Stallings and driving away, presumably to the gas station where they made their emergency call three minutes later.

Arrested and Discharged

Officers treated Ford’s wound at the gas station, then took him to a hospital, where he received additional treatment. Upon his discharge, he was arrested and charged with attempted first-degree burglary and felony obstruction of justice, the latter for lying about where and why he had been shot. Stallings, too, was arrested and charged with first-degree burglary.

According to police, “The case remains under investigation. Additional charges related to the attempted burglary and false reporting are pending review by the Gaston County District Attorney’s Office.”

Bolynn — whose property, if not his life, was saved by his use of a firearm — will not be charged, police said.

The police department, naturally, took the occasion of this worthwhile use of surveillance technology to tout its benefits, writing:

The integration of gunshot detection technology with Gastonia’s Real Time Crime Center and Flock Camera network represents the department’s continued commitment to using innovative tools to prevent crime, improve response times, solve crimes, and keep residents safe.

Nevertheless, it presents a clear and present danger to Gastonians’ — and other Americans’ — liberties, and efforts to rein it in are always welcome.