news-record.com

GREENSBORO — In a five-minute audio of a 911 call obtained today by the News & Record, Charles Haithcock calmly tells a police dispatcher that he shot an intruder in his Walnut Street apartment.

"A man broke in and pulled a gun, and I shot him," Haithcock said to the dispatcher. "He's laying out in the yard."

The incident happened early Wednesday morning at 1125 Walnut St.

In the call, which lasts nearly 5 minutes, the 80-year-old Haithcock said a man broke in through a living room window by removing an air conditioner. The man pointed what looked like a shotgun at Haithcock, who was in his bedroom, he said.

That's when Haithcock shot the man the times. The man stumbled out the front door and fell face down in the front yard.

At one point, the dispatcher asks if Haithcock can see the man, and Haithcock suggests opening the door. The dispatcher says no.

"If he was armed, I don't know if he's conscious or not," the dispatcher said. " ... I don't want you to go out there 'cause I don't know if he's alone, I don't know if he's conscious ... so just stay right here on the phone with me."

At about the three-minute mark of the call, with sirens wailing in the background, the dispatcher asks where Haithcock's gun is.

Haithcock replies: "I got it right here in my pocket."

The dispatcher urges Haithcock to put it away.

"I better hang on to it," Haithcock says. "I don't know how many of them there was. That window's still open where they knocked the air-conditioner out."

At the four-minute mark, Greensboro police officers can be heard knocking on the door. Haithcock tells them to hold on as he puts the gun in his bedroom.

The tape ends with Haithcock talking to officers and leaving his apartment.

Haithcock has not been charged.

The man killed has been identified as 19-year-old Michael Lamont Medley Jr. He was pronounced dead at Moses Cone Hospital shortly after the shooting.