Greensboro Man Charged After South Benbow Road Shooting Injures Victim

A man shot in the hip on the 1000 block of South Benbow Road was listed in stable condition after Greensboro police arrested 32-year-old Xavier Wallace near the scene and charged him with felony assault.

Officers responded around 10:30 a.m. on April 2 following reports of shots fired and a person down. They found the victim outside with a gunshot wound to the hip, called EMS, and transported him to a local hospital. His identity has not been publicly released. Wallace was located and detained in the nearby Baker Avenue area shortly after the shooting. Police said the two men knew each other and that the shooting followed an altercation between them.

Greensboro police charged Wallace with assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury and discharging a firearm within city limits, both felonies under North Carolina law. The assault charge is classified as a Class E felony under North Carolina General Statutes § 14-32(b), carrying a presumptive sentence of 20 to 25 months and a maximum of 88 months in the NC Department of Adult Corrections, depending on Wallace's prior record level. Prosecution will fall to the Guilford County District Attorney's Office in Prosecutorial District 24, led by District Attorney Avery Michelle Crump, who has held the office since 2019.

Because the shooting allegedly arose from a confrontation between acquaintances rather than a random act, self-defense could become a central legal question. North Carolina law recognizes self-defense as a valid defense to assault charges, and investigators will likely weigh the sequence of events that escalated the altercation as the case moves through Guilford County courts.

The shooting took place in a corridor that carries considerable weight in Greensboro's history. The South Benbow Road Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in December 2024, becoming the first historic district in the city centered on a historically Black neighborhood. The adjacent Benbow Park was home to civil rights attorney J. Kenneth Lee, and the broader area has been the focus of sustained preservation and documentation efforts by the city and community organizations.

The April 2 incident follows a turbulent stretch for public safety in Greensboro. The city recorded 74 homicides in 2023, the highest total in its history, before a sharp reversal: national tracking data showed Greensboro experienced a 26% drop in gun violence in 2024, one of the steepest declines among major U.S. cities. Nine days before the South Benbow Road shooting, the city's Director of Community Safety, Latisha McNeil, hosted a session titled "Building Safer Communities" focused on reducing gun violence.

The Greensboro Police Department described the case as an active investigation. Anyone with information is asked to contact GPD detectives or submit an anonymous tip through the department's tip line.