Wake County sees rise in gunfire and break-ins tied to Durham suspects
Durham-linked break-ins spread through Cary, Morrisville and Raleigh, while nearly two dozen cars were hit by gunfire at Crabtree Valley Mall.
Raleigh police said 18-year-old Lester Mayo faced 110 felony charges and 52 misdemeanor charges in a break-in spree that investigators tied to Durham County, Wake County, Cary, Morrisville, Raleigh, Apex and Chapel Hill. Authorities said more than a dozen firearms were stolen, putting a sharp local focus on the way gun crime and vehicle break-ins have moved across municipal lines in the Triangle.
The pressure has been felt in West Cary, where residents have watched gunfire and break-ins with growing alarm. One high-profile episode came on Oct. 26, 2024, when nearly two dozen cars were hit by gunfire in the Crabtree Valley Mall parking lot. That shooting, along with home break-ins elsewhere in Wake County, helped push closer scrutiny of crimes in western Wake County linked to people from Durham.
The concern is not just anecdotal. A later analysis found a 35% increase in crimes committed in Wake County by people from Durham County between 2019 and 2024. Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams criticized the tone of the earlier report and said he was disappointed with it, while Durham city leaders later addressed violence in their own city as a separate cluster of shootings drew attention.
For Wake County families, the issue now sits at the intersection of daily routines and local policing. Cary and Durham both maintain public crime-statistics systems that let residents track Part I crimes over time, including burglaries, larcenies, robberies and motor-vehicle thefts. Durham Police Department public data says crime reports are updated weekly and incident records stretch back to 2006, giving neighborhoods a longer view of how often these offenses are showing up.
The staffing picture in Durham also adds to the backdrop. As of July 2, 2026, the Durham Police Department listed 422 sworn positions filled out of 531, leaving 109 vacancies. For West Cary, Cary, Morrisville and the rest of Wake County’s edge communities, the combined picture is one of crimes that are increasingly regional, not confined to a single city line.
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