Raleigh police investigate shooting behind 7-Eleven on South Saunders Street

Raleigh police investigated a shooting Wednesday night behind a 7-Eleven on South Saunders Street after officers found an adult man wounded in a parking lot near Carolina Pines Avenue.

Police responded just before 8 p.m. to the 2600 block of South Saunders Street, where the man was found with a gunshot wound to the knee, according to officers at the scene. He was taken to a nearby hospital, and police said his injuries were not considered life-threatening. ABC11 later reported that the victim was shot in the lower body and was expected to recover.

CBS 17 crews reported a large police presence at the scene, including at least a dozen Raleigh police patrol vehicles, as officers worked the area behind the convenience store. The suspect had fled before police arrived, leaving investigators without an immediate arrest or a clear explanation for what sparked the gunfire. Police did not identify a suspect, say whether the victim knew the shooter, or describe how the encounter unfolded.

Authorities said the area was secured and there was no ongoing threat to the public. That mattered in a corridor that serves both neighborhood traffic and late-night retail customers, especially around the 2600 block of South Saunders Street, where the 7-Eleven is listed at 2600 South Saunders Street, Raleigh, North Carolina 27603.

The shooting also lands in the middle of a part of south Raleigh that city leaders are actively trying to remake. The City of Raleigh’s South Saunders Street project calls for a multi-use path on the east side of South Saunders Street to improve safe pedestrian and bike connections between downtown, John Chavis Memorial Park and Dix Park. Nearby, the Carolina Pines Avenue improvement project calls for sidewalks, a multi-use path, traffic calming, stormwater work, landscaping and street-light upgrades.

More broadly, the Southern Gateway Corridor Study describes the South Saunders and South Wilmington corridors as a roughly 3-mile district south of downtown targeted for major corridor improvements. Kane Realty has also promoted Downtown South as a southern gateway project between South Saunders Street and South Wilmington Street near I-40 and I-440. That larger redevelopment push is why a parking-lot shooting at a busy convenience store draws immediate attention: it is not just a single police call, but part of a corridor where residents, workers and shoppers are already being asked to move differently through the area.

Anyone with information was asked to contact Raleigh police or submit an anonymous tip through Crime Stoppers.