A 14-year-old has been taken into custody after a shooting at an East Durham apartment complex left a man dead, police said Tuesday.
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Officers responded to a report of a gunshot wound in the 1100 block of South Hoover Road at 2:15 p.m. Monday, Durham police said. It was one of two shootings in the Hoover Road Apartments area Monday.
In the fatal shooting, officers said a boy and a girl were arguing when a man tried to intervene, according to ABC11, The News & Observer’s newsgathering partner.
One of the teens then shot the man before fleeing, police said. They identified the man Tuesday as 34-year-old Gary Tharrington Jr. of Durham.
Tharrington was taken to a local hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.
Hours after the shooting, officers found the 14-year-old suspect and took him into custody with information provided by community members, they said.
Because the suspect is a juvenile, police said they won’t be providing additional identifying information.
“The Durham Police Department would like to thank the community members who came forward with information and assisted investigators,” the Durham Police Department wrote in a news release. “Their willingness to provide timely information was instrumental in helping officers quickly locate the suspect.”
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It was the second shooting in the area Monday, ABC11 reported.
Around 12:50 a.m., police found a girl who had been shot on the same block. She was reportedly in stable condition at the hospital.
“People shouldn’t have to live like this,” resident Julie Rapplyea, who heard the shootings, told ABC11. “I don’t know what the community is doing to help facilitate coming in.
“I feel like churches are failing communities like this because we have enough churches that can be in here regularly,” she added. “But unfortunately, a lot of people don’t want change.”
Police are continuing to investigate the incidents.
As of May 30, a total of 83 people had been shot in Durham this year, 11 of them fatally, the latest police statistics show.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact Investigator J. Turner at 919-560-4440 ext. x29532 or CrimeStoppers at 919-683-1200 or online at www.durhamcrimestoppers.org. CrimeStoppers pays cash rewards of up to $2,000 for information leading to arrests in felony cases, and callers never have to identify themselves.
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This story was originally published June 8, 2026 at 5:55 PM.