Officers shoot, kill man with ax while on suspicious person and fire call in Pinehurst neighborhood

PINEHURST, N.C. (WTVD) -- A man has died after being shot by Pinehurst police in what started as a suspicious person call.

Officers were initially dispatched to the scene on Remington Lane at 7:45 a.m. While there they noticed a fire and called firefighters.

While firefighters were working to contain the fire, officers encountered a man who grabbed a firefighter's ax left by the front door and charged at them and the fire crew.

Pinehurst police say while one officer gave commands for him to drop the weapon, two others fired shots striking him. The man was taken to a local hospital where he later died.

No law enforcement or fire department personnel were hurt.

Thursday police identified the man as 37-year-old Sawyer Felton Frye.

Pinehurst Police say the last time there was an officer-involved shooting in the village was in the 1950's.

"This is not normal for this is a relatively safe place. However, this is an incident that we train for," said Pinehurst Police Deputy Chief Ken Hall.

Police say there is body camera video of the incident. The Pinehurst Police Department and the NC State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) are reviewing the footage now.

Hall said, "Our officers obviously are shaken following a situation of this magnitude. However, all firefighters and law enforcement personnel involved were uninjured. So (they're) dealing with the emotional side of it at this point."

Baldwin Caldwell moved to Pinehurst from the south side of Chicago 40 years ago. He craved a quiet, idyllic place to live and was taken aback by the turn of events in his neighborhood.

"Shocked. I've never seen this many policemen here on the street at all," said Caldwell. "I've never heard a gunshot over here, let alone killing anybody. It's one of the reasons we moved here to get away from it. You want the quietest, nicest people I've ever seen in my life right here. And I just think of something like that as almost scary."

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