DaBaby’s Walmart Shooting: No Homicide Charge and 2022 Footage

On November 5, 2018, rapper DaBaby, whose legal name is Jonathan Lyndale Kirk, shot and killed 19-year-old Jaylin Craig inside a Walmart in Huntersville, North Carolina. The DaBaby Walmart shooting ended without a homicide prosecution: the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office concluded it could not disprove his self-defense claim beyond a reasonable doubt and formally closed the case in June 2019.¹ Surveillance footage obtained by Craig’s family and published by Rolling Stone in 2022 reopened public debate about that decision.

What Happened Inside the Store

Kirk was shopping with his partner and two young children on the evening of November 5, 2018, when he encountered Craig and Craig’s friend Henry Douglas in the Huntersville Walmart. According to Douglas, Kirk became agitated that the teenagers were looking at him, believed they recognized him, and demanded they step outside to fight. Douglas said he agreed to go outside to defuse the situation and leave with Craig in their cars.²

Before anyone left, Kirk threw a punch that struck Douglas while he was blindsided, leaving him with a bruised eye socket and a gash on his forehead that required stitches. A physical struggle followed. During the fight, Craig pulled a firearm from his waistband. Security footage later showed Craig appearing to begin putting the gun away as he moved out of frame, and investigators called it inconclusive whether he was brandishing the weapon as he approached. Kirk drew a concealed .40-caliber Glock and shot Craig once in the side. Craig fled to a nearby aisle, collapsed, and was pronounced dead at the scene.²

The gun found near Craig’s body was reported as stolen, though his family said he had bought it secondhand and did not know its history. Douglas was not charged and was interviewed by a Huntersville Police Department detective while receiving stitches at the hospital.¹

Why Prosecutors Did Not Charge Kirk With Homicide

Kirk told police that Craig and Douglas had been lurking in aisles, staring at him, and threatening him, and that the two men pulled a gun on his family. He described the encounter to detectives in a 45-minute interview as a “life-or-death” situation and posted on Instagram that the two had “started it.”² His attorneys, Drew Findling and Marissa Goldberg, said prosecutors had reviewed the full surveillance footage in 2018 and found it corroborated the self-defense account.³

The Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office declined to charge him with homicide, stating it “could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act in self-defense.”¹

The decision turned on two North Carolina statutes. NCGS 14-51.3 justifies deadly force when a person reasonably believes it necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm and is somewhere they have a lawful right to be, with no duty to retreat.⁴ NCGS 14-51.4 takes that justification away from anyone who “initially provokes the use of force,” unless the response was so severe that the initial aggressor reasonably believed they faced imminent death or serious bodily harm and had no reasonable means of retreat.⁵

Who started the fight was therefore central. Because Craig had a gun on his person during the altercation, prosecutors concluded they could not definitively disprove Kirk’s claim that he feared for his life, even though whether Craig actually brandished the weapon remained inconclusive.²

The Only Conviction From That Night

Kirk was separately charged with misdemeanor carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. The charge was initially dismissed in March 2019 after Judge Matt Osman denied prosecutors’ motion for a continuance when a key civilian witness failed to appear.⁶ The state refiled, and Kirk was found guilty at retrial. Judge Tyyawdi Hands sentenced him to 12 months of unsupervised probation and a suspended 30-day jail sentence.⁷

What the 2022 Surveillance Footage Showed

On April 24, 2022, Rolling Stone published a feature by reporter Cheyenne Roundtree that included previously unseen surveillance footage from the Walmart. Craig’s family had obtained the full police file, including the video, from the Huntersville Police Department in April 2021 after years of requests.²

The footage appeared to contradict key elements of Kirk’s account. Rather than showing Craig and Douglas approaching Kirk, the video depicted Kirk initiating the physical confrontation by charging at Douglas and punching him while he was caught off guard. Craig then pulled a gun from his waistband during the scuffle but appeared to begin putting it away as he walked out of frame. Kirk drew his own weapon and fired.⁸

Criminal defense attorney Todd Owens, interviewed by Rolling Stone, said the footage “completely undermines” the legal theory that Kirk was in imminent danger, noting that Kirk’s own partner and associates appeared to approach Craig even when he allegedly had a weapon. Owens and other legal analysts argued the case should have gone to a jury.² The Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office responded by reaffirming its earlier decision, stating that “no circumstances have changed since our office’s previous review.”⁹

The Craig Family’s Position

Jaylin Craig’s parents, LaWanda Horsley and Curtis Craig, have consistently disputed Kirk’s self-defense account. Horsley told Rolling Stone: “I don’t look at him as no DaBaby. I look at him like, ‘You’re Jonathan Kirk and you murdered Jaylin Craig.'” Curtis Craig stated that Kirk “got away with it.”²¹⁰

The family alleged that Huntersville police failed to interview multiple witnesses at the scene and that initial reports contained errors, including misspelling Craig’s name. According to Horsley, Assistant District Attorney William Bunting personally told her he believed Kirk should have been charged with murder but felt constrained by the evidence the police department had provided.²

As of the most recent reporting, the Craig family has not filed a wrongful death or civil lawsuit against Kirk, though legal commentators have noted that avenue remains open.¹

How Kirk Has Referenced the Killing in His Music

Kirk has returned to the shooting repeatedly in his lyrics and videos, a practice Craig’s family has called exploitative. Four days after the killing, he released a music video for “No Tears” that incorporated compiled local news footage of the Walmart incident, with lyrics including: “And any nigga, touch me, catch a body like Boosie. Try me, I’m shootin’.”²

In January 2019, the music video for “Walker Texas Ranger” depicted Kirk fighting a man styled to resemble Craig. On “Leave Me Alone (Freestyle),” he rapped: “The last nigga played, he no longer here, goddamn… I’m in the store with my daughter, the cameras recording.” His 2020 hit “Rockstar” with Roddy Ricch included the line: “My daughter a G, she saw me kill a nigga in front of her before the age of two.” On the 2021 single “Masterpiece,” he rapped: “I don’t know what went down at that Walmart.”²¹¹

Horsley said it sickened the family to see Kirk build a career on the back of their son’s death. Kirk signed a joint-venture deal with Interscope Records and South Coast Music Group on January 23, 2019, roughly 11 weeks after the shooting; he reportedly was told at the time to “keep doing me, don’t change nothin’.”¹² There is no public record of Interscope addressing the killing.

1
WCNC Charlotte. Rolling Stone DaBaby 2018 Self-Defense Shooting
2
Rolling Stone. DaBaby Walmart Shooting Death
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Billboard. DaBaby Lawyers React Shooting Video Self-Defense
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NC General Assembly. G.S. 14-51.3
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FindLaw. NC Gen St Sect 14-51.4
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Charlotte Observer. DaBaby Gun Charge Dismissed
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Complex. DaBaby Sentenced Probation Walmart Shooting Case
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Business Insider. New Video Casts Doubt DaBaby Self-Defense Claim
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WFAE. A Video of a 2018 Shooting Involving Charlotte Rapper DaBaby Was Recently Released
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Fox News. Rapper DaBaby North Carolina Walmart Shooting Video
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NME. DaBaby Responds to Fatal Walmart Shooting on New Single Masterpiece
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XXL. DaBaby Signs Interscope Records