Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

RALEIGH – The United States Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Robert J. Higdon, Jr., announced that today in federal court, Senior United States District Judge Malcolm J. Howard sentenced KELLY SHADROME ANDERSON, 33, of Wilson, North Carolina to 120 months of imprisonment followed by 3 years of supervised release.

 

ANDERSON was charged in a single-count Indictment on June 22, 2017, with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon. On April 14, 2018, ANDERSON was found guilty by a jury.

 

In the early evening of September 24, 2016, Wilson Police Department was called to respond to a hostage situation at a home in Wilson, NC. Witnesses stated that a black male, later determined to be ANDERSON, ran into the home with a gun and locked himself inside with the homeowner’s niece, a four year-old child. The Wilson Police Department responded to the call and engaged in hostage negotiations with ANDERSON, who eventually released the child, and then surrendered himself. Wilson Police Department conducted a search of the home and found a firearm hidden in the cushions of the living room couch. Further investigation indicated that ANDERSON was involved in an altercation in a nearby neighborhood, where he fired a weapon and then fled on foot and arrived at the victim’s home.

 

This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. Attorney General Jeff Sessions reinvigorated PSN in 2017 as part of the Department’s renewed focus on targeting violent criminals, directing all U.S. Attorney’s Offices to work in partnership with federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement and the local community to develop effective, locally based strategies to reduce violent crime.

 

In support of PSN, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina has implemented the Take Back North Carolina Initiative. This initiative emphasizes the regional assignment of federal prosecutors to work with law enforcement and District Attorney’s Offices on a sustained basis in those communities to reduce the violent crime rate, drug trafficking, and crimes against law enforcement.

 

The Wilson Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives conducted the criminal investigation of this case. Assistant United States Attorney Melissa Belle Kessler handled the prosecution of this case for the United States.

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