Officers rushed the wounded child to a hospital after responding to an apartment shortly after midnight, police said.

PINEVILLE, N.C. — Police officers responding to a North Carolina apartment complex shortly after midnight found a critically wounded 5-year-old boy and drove him to a hospital in a patrol vehicle, but doctors could not save him. The child’s father was later arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

Jehaaz-Akil Khaliq Echoles, 31, is accused of forcing his way into the Sabal Point Apartments home where his son, Khalil Ali Echoles, lived with the boy’s mother. Court documents and police accounts say Echoles entered Khalil’s bedroom and closed the door before the mother heard a disturbance. The case has moved into the criminal court system, where the allegations have not been proven and Echoles is presumed innocent unless convicted.

The emergency unfolded shortly after midnight on July 9 at the apartment complex near South Polk Street and Sabal Park Drive in Pineville, a town south of Charlotte. Police were dispatched for a reported assault with a deadly weapon. When officers arrived, they found Khalil outside with his mother. He was unresponsive and had suffered several wounds, authorities said. Officers began emergency treatment before placing the boy in a patrol vehicle and taking him directly to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The decision to use a police vehicle reflected the urgency officers faced at the scene. Authorities have not released a complete timeline showing how many minutes passed between the 911 call, the officers’ arrival and the child’s arrival at the hospital. Police have said only that the call came shortly after midnight and that officers immediately began trying to save him. The name of the hospital was not released in the reports reviewed for this story.

According to an arrest affidavit described by local news organizations, Khalil’s mother told investigators that Echoles, her former boyfriend and the boy’s father, did not live in the apartment. She said he broke through the front door, went into their son’s bedroom and shut the bedroom door. She then heard what was described in court records as a commotion. When she opened the bedroom door, Echoles ran out of the room and left the apartment, according to the account attributed to her.

The mother found Khalil bleeding and unresponsive and called 911, authorities said. Another child was inside the apartment during the incident but was not physically injured, according to investigators. Police have not publicly identified that child or described where the child was in the apartment. Officers characterized the case as a domestic incident rather than a random attack and said there was no continuing threat to the wider neighborhood after the arrest.

Police located Echoles a short time later at a Taco Bell in Pineville. Some reports placed the restaurant about a mile from the apartment complex. Authorities have not publicly explained how investigators traced him there, whether anyone contacted police from the restaurant or whether officers recovered a weapon during the arrest. They also have not released information about statements he may have made to officers.

Echoles was booked on a first-degree murder charge. Local reports also listed assault on a female and simple assault among the charges associated with his arrest, although the available accounts did not fully explain the conduct underlying each additional count. WSOC-TV reported that one assault charge was connected to an active warrant. Court records cited by the station showed previous or pending cases involving accusations of violence against women.

Those earlier cases are separate from the killing charge and do not establish guilt in the death of Khalil. WSOC-TV reported that Echoles had a prior conviction for assaulting a woman and two pending cases involving the same offense. Law&Crime reported that he had appeared in several Mecklenburg County jail booking photographs since 2023 and described affidavits from two earlier cases in which women accused him of assaultive behavior. The status of every earlier case could not be independently confirmed from the publicly accessible material reviewed for this article.

Investigators have not announced a possible motive in Khalil’s death. They have not said whether Echoles had been expected at the apartment, whether he had contacted the mother before arriving or whether any dispute immediately preceded the alleged break-in. Authorities also have not released information about custody arrangements, protective orders or other family-court matters that might have involved the parents. Without confirmed records, no conclusions can be drawn about why the child was attacked.

The newly reported 911 recording adds a limited account of the panic inside the home as the incident unfolded. WCNC reported that the call captured the mother pleading for help and included the father’s voice. The recording was made before she found Khalil fatally wounded, according to the station. Because the available written report provided only selected portions of the audio, this article does not reproduce unverified or incomplete statements from the call. News of the killing spread through the apartment community and the larger Pineville area during the hours after police cleared the scene. A neighbor told WSOC-TV that waking up to learn what had happened was unsettling and heartbreaking and expressed sympathy for the family. Police did not report injuries to the mother, the other child, responding officers or anyone at the restaurant where Echoles was arrested.

Family members and friends later identified Khalil publicly and began raising money for funeral expenses. A fundraising page quoted by WCCB described him as a sweet, bright and joyful child whose smile could light up a room. The page offered one of the few public descriptions of Khalil beyond the facts of his death. Authorities have otherwise released little information about his life, school or interests, and relatives have not been widely quoted in news reports.

The homicide investigation remains centered on what happened between Echoles’ alleged entry into the apartment and his departure from the bedroom. Detectives are expected to rely on the mother’s account, the condition of the doors and apartment, the 911 recording, medical findings, physical evidence and any surveillance video or electronic records obtained during the investigation. Police have not said which of those materials have been collected or whether laboratory testing is underway.

A first-degree murder charge is an accusation, not a finding that Echoles committed the offense. Prosecutors must prove the charge in court, and defense lawyers may challenge witness accounts, physical evidence, police procedures or other parts of the state’s case. The public reports reviewed for this article did not identify an attorney speaking on Echoles’ behalf or include a plea entered by him.

Early reports said Echoles was being held without bond at the Mecklenburg County jail and had a court appearance scheduled for July 30. No reliable public report reviewed by Aug. 4 confirmed the outcome of that proceeding or announced a trial date. Police have continued to describe the case as an active investigation, and the complete circumstances surrounding Khalil’s death, including a motive, remain undisclosed.

Author note: Last updated Aug. 4, 2026.