A former S.C. Highway Patrol trooper caught on video kicking a suspect in the head has pleaded not guilty to a federal civil rights charge.Court records show U.S. Magistrate Judge Bristow Marchant set a $25,000 bond for John Sawyer during a hearing on Wednesday.Sawyer was accused of willfully depriving a man of his right to be free from the use of unreasonable force by a police officer after video emerged showing him kicking the man in the head after a 2006 interstate chase.Sawyer was placed on

Neighbors who watched as their landlord was shot to death expressed disbelief Wednesday about an eviction that ended in homicide in their Grier Heights neighborhood.Jacob Massachi died Tuesday after trying to evict Shawn Howard and his pregnant girlfriend from a brick house off Monroe Road, police and neighbors said. The shooting ended weeks of turmoil between the men as neighbors looked on from their porches in the late afternoon sun.Massachi, known to residents as “Mr. Jacob, the rent ma

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities customers may wash their cars at home and fill swimming pools and fountains one day a week, beginning today.The water department allowed once-a-week lawn watering, banned since September because of drought, to resume April 5. Lawn irrigation may continue.Continued rain made it possible to further relax the mandatory restrictions. Residential car-washing and filling of pools and fountains will be allowed on the same weekend day on which residents can water their la

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said a 17-year-old has died after he was shot while sitting inside a car in south Charlotte.The victim was identified as Ulisses Alejandro Mayo. Police said officers were called to the 2600 block of South Boulevard around 11:16 p.m. Saturday where a person was reported shot. Mayo was taken to Carolinas Medical Center where he was pronounced dead shortly after arriving.Police said the shooting occurred in the 400 block of Belton street, and Mayo was sitting in the pas

Gaston County police are seeking help locating a 22-year-old woman missing since Tuesday.Police say Jamie Michelle Fraley is a white female, who is 4-feet-8-inches tall, weighs about 90 pounds and has long blond hair and brown eyes.She was last seen on Lowell Bethesda Road in Gastonia on Tuesday.Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to call Gaston police at 704-869-3320 or CrimeStoppers at 704-861-8000.

A Catholic priest charged with having sex with a 14-year-old boy in Charlotte in 1999 is in the Mecklenburg County jail today.Records show the Rev. Robert Yurgel was booked around 9:15 this morning. He is expected in court on Tuesday, according to a Web site for the jail.Yurgel, 43, is charged with five counts of taking indecent liberties with a child and two counts of statutory sex offense. He was arrested April 2 in Passaic, N.J., where he lives. Later that week in court, Yurgel waived his rig

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police say a pedestrian was killed late Saturday after he crossed in front of a car traveling on Albemarle Road in east Charlotte.Police have not released the name of the victim.Authorities said a driver was going east on Albemarle in a 1998 Chevrolet Lumina around 10:30 p.m. Saturday when the man stepped in front of the car near the El Paisano Restaurant. The victim was struck by the car and pronounced dead on the scene.

Statesville police said two men were shot early this morning at the Good Time Saloon on Signal Hill Drive.The men, whom police have not identified, appeared to have non-life threatening injuries, according to a news release. No arrests have been made, and no suspect descriptions were available.Police said they were called to the bar before 2 a.m. this morning. When officers arrived, a large crowd was leaving the establishment.Police said they learned a short time later that two men believed to h