DA drops charges in ‘drug turf’ shooting that hit Charlotte school bus, cites self defense
Prosecutors have dropped their case against a man accused of stealing a trooper’s rifle and using it in a “drug turf” shootout that sent bullets into an east Charlotte church and school bus.
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Police arrested and charged four men in the Dec. 16, 2024, shooting that broke the windows of a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools bus and left some of the 33 children on the bus crying and cut by shattered glass while their Santa-hat-wearing driver drove away and called for help.
Court documents say that during the shootout, Paris Lewis-Bynum, then 20, fired a rifle he stole from an N.C. State Highway trooper earlier that day. He was trying to “’defend’ drug territory,” prosecutors wrote in a 2024 court document.
Police charged him with possession of a stolen firearm, possession of a firearm by a felon, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, and possession of a stolen motor vehicle. A Monday hearing in his case was canceled indefinitely because prosecutors in May dismissed his case altogether.
In their motion to dismiss, prosecutors with Mecklenburg District Attorney Spencer Merriweather’s office wrote that “evidence would likely show [Lewis-Bynum] shot at a rival after the rival shot towards him.” The district attorney’s office said they would “be unsuccessful” in proving that “self defense does not apply beyond reasonable doubt” in his case.
Prosecutors dismissed the gun possession charge, saying Lewis-Bynum faces the same charge in federal court, has pleaded guilty and is expected to receive a “lengthy prison sentence.”
His federal sentencing is set for August.
Court documents filed in Mecklenburg Superior Court give a fragmented view of what happened in the shooting behind the Dollar General near the intersection of East W.T. Harris Boulevard and Albemarle Road on the afternoon of Dec. 16, 2024.
Police first spoke to a teen, court documents say. The teen said he was trying to buy marijuana from Lewis-Bynum, who picked him up in a gray Infiniti. The teen got in the backseat, and Lewis-Bynum told him he had “other business to attend to” and pulled into the Dollar General parking lot, according to an affidavit.
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Lewis-Bynum, who the teen knew as “Marquise,” was in a verbal fight with another person in a white car when shots flew. The teen ran away, toward the nearby bus, and bullets followed him. The teen and other children on the bus had cuts from broken glass, but none were shot. Bullets also hit a white van traveling nearby.
Court documents say another man, Joshua Woods, conspired with Lewis-Bynum to kill Jaheim Boone. Documents also say Boone tried to kill Woods and another man.
Woods, charged at 21, and Boone, charged at 23, face multiple counts of assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill.
Boone was also charged with nine counts of discharging a weapon into a moving vehicle, two counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and one count of possession with intent to manufacture and sell cocaine, carrying a concealed gun, and obstructing a police officer.
Woods was also charged with a count of felony conspiracy.
Boone was expected to have a routine hearing in his case Tuesday. Woods is expected to enter a plea next month.
A man named Lamarius Anthony was also charged as a 21-year-old with drug and gun possession charges in relation to the shootout. He pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed gun in February, and prosecutors dropped marijuana and cocaine charges against him.
A judge suspended his six- to 17-month sentence and placed him instead on two years probation, prison records show.
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This story was originally published July 14, 2026 at 2:53 PM.
