How Safe are Charlotte Malls?

CHARLOTTE, NC — Another holiday, another shooting at Northlake Mall.

Tonight we are uncovering just how much crime is happening at Charlotte malls.

No one got hurt in the Northlake shooting, but the latest violent crime has customers asking questions. We broke down crime numbers around Northlake and Southpark malls, to see what people are walking into.

Shots fired outside Northlake Mall on Labor Day, leaving shoppers and employees shaken and scared.

“I called the police,” said Kaia Pate, a Northwest Charlotte resident who was inside the mall during the shooting. “I was told they had received multiple calls for service, reporting a shooting.”

This is the same mall where a man, wielding a gun, was shot and killed by an off-duty CMPD officer, hired as security by the mall, last Christmas Eve.
There have been 395 calls for service to CMPD from Northlake Mall since April 1st.

KEYAMONY GETER/NORTHWEST CHARLOTTE RESIDENT: “It is a lot of concerns in this area,” says Northwest Charlotte resident Keyamony Geter. “I mean when you told me it was 395. I was like, wow!”

So how safe are you when you head to the mall?
We tracked the calls for service for Northlake and Southpark Malls going back to April, using CMPD’s crime mapping system.

For April and May, Northlake had 161 and Southpark 113.

With school out in June, July and August, Northlake saw 225 calls for service and Southpark 157.

The reports include shoplifting, theft from cars, disturbing the peace and assault; at both malls. More calls at Northlake include violent crime.
Many people say that’s because young people are using it as a gathering point, and a place where feuds are settled.
We talked with CMPD last month about the top places for service calls in Charlotte. Officer John Frisk warned of not getting lulled into thinking nothing will happen at the mall.

“People definitely get that false sense of security,” said Officer Frisk. “And you know both of those malls have CMPD officers working in there, uniformed officers, and a I definitely think that they see the officers and they probably think, well you know what, I’m not going to have any problems.”

We reached out to CMPD today to talk about what’s fueling the criminal activity around Northlake mall, but they declined our interview request at this time.