CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA—Street preacher Sam Bethea watched an execution last night. He didn't know if the man was dead, but it looked that way.
"Brains," Bethea said. "Blood everywhere. They blew off the top of his head. And that's when I started saying my prayers."
Late this afternoon, a source told the local NBC affiliate that the victim had died.
Today, Bethea and others outside of the Omni Hotel milled about and sat on benches near where the shooting took place Wednesday night. They dismissed rumors that police fired the bullet that landed in the still-unnamed man's head.
"There was a lot of pushing and shoving," said Jerome, a homeless Army veteran who was feet away from the man who got shot. He didn't want to give his last name. "Then someone raised up with a gun. Pow!"
The shooting came during a particularly chaotic stretch last night when Jerome says police were simply overwhelmed by a large and raucous crowd of people protesting the fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott—killed Friday holding a book or a gun, depending on which version of the story you believe. After over-running police, arguments and fights broke out among members of the crowd—Jerome attributed the eruption of violence to rival gang members being in close quarters—and someone pulled a gun. Then came the blood.
"Blew off the top of his head," Bethea said.
A man stepped in to help, Jerome and Bethea explained, but was pushed and punched away as the blood began pooling on the brick sidewalk. Jerome said the Good Samaritan was a news reporter who tried to perform CPR; Bethea thought he was a security guard. Whoever he was, he couldn't reach the victim. For whatever reason, some in the crowd around the man wanted him to bleed out. Then the police arrived.
Officers and citizens carried the man away to an armored police truck. He made it to the hospital alive. He died less than 24 hours later.
Jerome will head to a men's shelter downtown tonight, just in case things get as crazy as they were last night. Bethea will maintain his ministry on the corner outside the Omni Hotel, and he'll continue preaching to young men, who he says oftentimes don't want to hear it.
As he handed out lanyards reading "I love Jesus" on Thursday afternoon, one such man approached. "He was kicking in windows last night. I saw him on the news," Bethea alleged. "Let's see what he says."
"I had to go savage," the man told Bethea, laughing.
"Don't do savage," Bethea responded. "Do love."