Left inset: Charles Stevenson Jr. (Cary Police Department). Right inset: Ema, the 5-year-old girl that Charles Stevenson Jr. allegedly shot and injured in a road rage incident (GoFundMe). Background: First responders on U.S. 1 in Cary, N.C., on Monday July 30, 2025 (WRAL/YouTube).
A 20-year-old man in North Carolina allegedly opened fire on a father driving in rush hour traffic with his 5-year-old daughter in the back seat, sending a bullet through her leg that then got lodged in her sippy cup, according to police.
“What an image that is,” Aubree Allison, the victim”s aunt, told local NBC affiliate WRAL.
“It’s nothing that you hope happens in your own life,” she said.
Charles Stevenson Jr., of Raleigh, is facing felony charges of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury and discharging a firearm into occupied property for the alleged “road rage incident,” according to WRAL. He was originally facing a charge of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill but local prosecutors chose to upgrade it by the time Stevenson appeared in court on Wednesday for his bond hearing.
“One of your charges was dismissed as being recharged in a different way,” Wake County Judge Margaret Eagles told him, according to The News & Observer. “At this time, you’re going to be held with no bond on this charge.”
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Stevenson is accused of shooting a girl named Ema, whose last name is being withheld by media at the request of her family, while she was riding in a Ford F-150 with her father along U.S. 1 between the U.S. 64 offramp and Cary Parkway overpass on Monday. The dad allegedly told cops that Stevenson was driving erratically and had gotten into an altercation with another motorist before he set upon the father and his daughter.
According to the dad, Stevenson threw an object at the other motorist’s car, but it wound up hitting his F-150. The father rolled his window down and began yelling at Stevenson, which allegedly prompted him to fire a single shot from his gun.
“They found the bullet in her sippy cup,” said Ema’s mother, Gina, in an interview with WRAL. “He was attacking another car, trying to run her off the road,” she alleged.
Ema’s reportedly been through multiple surgeries and will now need physical therapy.
“Another driver’s reckless actions led to this heartbreaking event,” a GoFundMe says for her family. “Despite this unimaginable ordeal, she remains in great spirits and is showing incredible strength as she recovers in the hospital,” it adds. “This innocent little girl did not deserve this.”
