A driver killed while exchanging shots with a deputy had allegedly been shooting at the town’s police station minutes earlier, according to investigators in eastern North Carolina.
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The gunfight happened just before 1 a.m. Tuesday in Elizabethtown, and the driver has been identified as 50-year-old Michael Bynum Horne Jr., of White Oak, the Bladen County Sheriff’s Office said in a May 12 news release.
“At approximately 12:30 a.m., the Bladen County Communication Center received a call from a concerned citizen stating she saw a white colored Honda Accord in front of the Elizabethtown Police Department, shooting at the department,” the sheriff’s office said.
“At … 12:49 a.m., a deputy with the Bladen County Sheriff’s Office conducted a traffic stop of a vehicle matching the description at N.C. 53 and Saw Mill Lane. A deputy … asked the male to step out of the vehicle. The male fled down Saw Mill Lane in his vehicle and turned around, and as he was coming out … fired multiple shots at the deputy.”
The deputy returned fire, hitting the driver multiple times, the sheriff’s office said. The driver fled the scene and was located at a nearby home on N.C. 53 West, officials said.
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Deputies performed life-saving measures on the man, but he died after being taken to a hospital, officials said.
Details of a motive have not been released.
The N.C. State Bureau of Investigation will lead an investigation into the incident, which is standard procedure in officer-involved shootings.
The identity of the deputy who fired the fatal shots has not been released. Investigators did not report the deputy was injured.
Elizabethtown is about a 95-mile drive south from downtown Raleigh.
This story was originally published May 14, 2026 at 6:25 AM with the headline “Deadly gunfight erupts after driver shoots into police station, NC sheriff says.”
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