Knightdale bar fight leads to shooting, three hospitalized

A fight at The Sports Page Bar & Grill in Knightdale turned into gunfire just before 2 a.m. Saturday, leaving three people hospitalized and sending a jolt through one of the busiest late-night strips on North Smithfield Road.

Knightdale police said officers were called to a report of shots fired after a brawl broke out inside or near the bar and grill. Investigators said one of the men involved drew a handgun and started firing. One person was shot in the abdomen, another was grazed, and a vehicle parked nearby was hit by gunfire.

Police said the shooter and the two people hurt were taken to a nearby hospital with injuries that were not believed to be life-threatening. Investigators also said they identified everyone involved and recovered the weapon used in the shooting. There is no active threat to the public, police said.

Joseph Alston, 34, of Knightdale, is facing charges including assault with a deadly weapon, disorderly conduct and damage to property. William Fuller, 32, of Wendell, was charged with intoxicated and disruptive behavior and affray. The case moved quickly from a bar fight into a shooting investigation, with officers sorting out who was involved and what role each person played in the violence.

The episode carries weight beyond the immediate scene because The Sports Page Bar & Grill sits in a part of Knightdale where nightlife, retail traffic and apartment and neighborhood spillover all mix late into the night. A shooting there raises the same immediate questions for patrons, workers and nearby businesses every time a firearm enters a crowded parking lot: how fast the fight escalated, how many people were in the area, and how much danger spread beyond the original dispute.

The location has now been tied to at least two shootings within roughly a year. On May 25, 2025, Knightdale police said a 32-year-old man was shot in the parking lot outside the same bar and remained hospitalized but stable. In that case, police later identified Ray Shawn Austin of Petersburg, Virginia, as the suspect after a nine-day search. Austin was arrested in Holly Springs on June 3, 2025, after investigators tracked him to a friend’s home on Garage Lane. He was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and possession of a firearm by a felon.

That earlier case ended with a public show of coordination among Knightdale police, the Wake County Sheriff's Office and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. Now, with another shooting at the same venue, the focus returns to how quickly a routine night out in east Wake can turn into a crime scene and a hospital run.