Autopsy Confirms Durham Pizza Worker Shot Six Times by Co-Worker

Mohamed Aly, 30, was working the line at Randy's Pizza in Durham, North Carolina, just before 5 p.m. on February 26 when a verbal dispute with a co-worker turned fatal. An autopsy released April 1 by the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed he had been shot six times.

The wounds, to his chest, back, arm, and wrist, caused severe internal injuries and internal bleeding. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. Co-worker Isaiah Rawlinson, also 30, has been charged with first-degree murder.

According to police accounts, the two men argued in the kitchen. Another employee stepped between them long enough to briefly separate the pair. The argument restarted. Aly threw a glove at Rawlinson. Rawlinson drew a 9mm handgun and fired three shots. After Aly fell to the kitchen floor, Rawlinson walked closer and fired three more. An armed customer inside the restaurant held Rawlinson at gunpoint until Durham police arrived.

The sequence matters beyond the criminal case. A kitchen dispute that was paused, not resolved, ended with a worker dead and co-workers left to process what they witnessed from feet away. Workers present during workplace homicides frequently face PTSD, lost shifts during police investigations, and, if the victim was a household's primary earner, financial collapse with no structured safety net.

The case is a hard reminder that de-escalation in a restaurant kitchen is not a soft skill; it is a liability management function. When a manager or co-worker separates two arguing employees, that separation needs to be followed by documentation, a cooling period, and a decision about whether both workers can safely return to the same shift. At Randy's Pizza on February 26, the separation happened. The follow-through did not.

Workplace homicides are among the leading causes of on-the-job deaths in the hospitality sector, a statistic rarely surfaced in conversations about restaurant safety that tend to focus on slip-and-fall incidents or knife injuries. The Rawlinson case illustrates a specific and underacknowledged risk: an employee who brought a firearm onto the premises. No-weapons policies posted on a break room wall do not keep a gun out of a kitchen without consistent enforcement.

For kitchen managers, the case also raises a document-or-pay-later reality: if prior conflicts between Aly and Rawlinson existed and went unlogged, civil exposure grows considerably. Whether co-workers present during the shooting received mental-health leave or employee assistance program access has not been publicly disclosed.

Rawlinson remains charged with first-degree murder. The criminal case will move through North Carolina courts. The six shots fired in that Durham kitchen, three while Aly stood and three after he had fallen, are now a matter of medical record.