Fiancé of Hedingham shooting victim calls on Raleigh leaders to resign

The fiancé of one of the victims fatally shot in the Hedingham mass shooting last month is calling on the entire Raleigh City Council to resign.

Robert Steele, who was set to marry Mary Marshall this past weekend, said he believes an emergency alert about an active shooter in the neighborhood could have prevented the 34-year-old woman’s death. He spoke during the Raleigh City Council meeting Tuesday night.

“This one thing I lay directly at the feet of the city of Raleigh and Wake County,” he said during the public comment portion of the meeting. “There is no emergency alert system for ongoing violent crimes in our city. This is something that will be relatively easy to implement, as it could be piggybacked on existing weather and amber alert systems.”

Marshall was one of seven people shot — five fatally — on Oct. 13 in the northeast Raleigh neighborhood.

Steele said many factors contributed to Marshall’s death, including “plain, dumb, bad luck.” But blame should also be placed on city leaders, he said.

“You sit here and you have these meetings where you discuss zoning, easements and renaming of government buildings while citizens you are elected to represent are dying in your city and you’ve done nothing of substance to prevent it,” he said. “So either resign, or we force you out in one week.”

As Steele walked away, Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said, “I do want to say our hearts are with you, and we are terribly sorry about what happened.”

After the meeting, Baldwin told The News & Observer it is a “top priority” for city staff to put protocols in place for the alert system. The alert system is managed by the county and would have needed the police department to request an alert.

“The alert system is a lot more complicated,” she said. “We don’t have a protocol in place and we need to.”

According to the city’s follow-up report on the shooting, the first call to 911 came in at 5:09 p.m. with first responders arriving 10 minutes later. Steele spoke to Marshall at 5:13 p.m. while she was walking the dog, not knowing what was happening several hundreds yards away, he said.

The city’s report says a 911 caller found Marshall at 5:21 p.m. on the nearby Neuse River Greenway Trail.

“An alert sent out about an active shooter anytime between the first 911 call and approximately 5:20 p.m. would have most likely saved her life,” Steele said during the public meeting. “She could have gotten off the trail. She could have run. Instead she died.”

Following a massive manhunt and a standoff, the suspected shooter was in custody after 9:30 p.m. over a mile away.

Alert systems not used

The city did not use two available alert systems during the mass shooting that would have sent messages to people’s cell phones, The N&O previously reported.

Throughout the night of the shooting, the city or the Raleigh Police Department made 14 public posts on social media, including Nextdoor, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. These included posts about an active shooter and for people on certain streets to remain in their homes. The alerts sent on Nextdoor would have triggered an in-app notification, text message and email if the person opted into those alerts.

Raleigh spokesperson Julia Milstead previously told The N&O that city leaders will look into the alert system as part of a review of the shooting.

“City leaders and the command staff with the Raleigh Police Department will perform a comprehensive after-action review of all the steps taken during this incident, with the goal being to ensure communications with the community is a top priority,” Milstead said.

Steele said he raised the lack of a widespread alert on the night of the shooting in previous conversations with city staff and Baldwin, he said in a brief interview with The N&O.

Baldwin and other City Council members are up for election next Tuesday.

Mary Marshall, 34: Raleigh shooting victim was a veteran who taught others to be brave

Where does the investigation stand?

Earlier in the day, Police Chief Estella Patterson gave city leaders a brief update about the mass shooting.

The investigation is ongoing, she said, and a second canvass of the neighborhood has taken place to talk to potential witnesses. The police department has interviewed school officials, friends and family of the suspect and victim to help understand what “led up to the incident.”

The police department is still working to determine the 15-year-old suspect’s motive, she said, adding the police department is working with the Wake County District Attorney’s Office on the criminal charges.

The suspect was taken to the hospital in critical condition after the shooting, and authorities have not provided an update on his condition.