By Kirsten Valle Pittman and Steve Lyttle
kpittman@charlotteobserver.com; slyttle@charlotteobserver.com

A Charlotte-Mecklenburg police official said Tuesday that fighting and shootings that left one person dead and led to 70 arrests early Sunday in Charlotte's uptown were not a case of "near-rioting" and instead were caused by relatively small groups of people.

Meanwhile, media accounts of the uptown troubles are receiving national attention, and one city leader says the transportation center must be made safer.

"We never lost control of the streets, and we never lost control of the crowds," said Capt. Jeff Estes, commander of CMPD's Central Division, which oversees the uptown area.

"It was not a 'near-riot,' as it's being described by some," Estes added.

He said the large number of arrests was an effort by police to curb troubles before they worsened, although he said police are heavily involved in solving the shooting that left one man dead and another injured.

"If there were 20,000 or 30,000 people in the uptown area Saturday night, and we're talking about maybe 70 people involved in this trouble, that's just a small fraction," Estes said. "And we dealt with the small group causing the trouble."

Estes said he knew of no confrontations between the 70 or so troublemakers and two other groups in the uptown area -- those spending the evening at the clubs and restaurants in Center City, and the people visiting Food Lion Speed Street, the NASCAR-related concerts and displays in uptown.

"Speed Street ended a few hours before the trouble began," he said.

The Drudge Report, a heavily read national website, on Tuesday morning posted a Charlotte Observer story on the chaos in the Center City area. In a headline linked to the story, the Drudge Report referred to the fighting and fatal shooting as "gang riots."

The Drudge Report's headline noted that Charlotte will be the site of the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

Several city leaders Monday said the violence is unacceptable, and they promised a crackdown.

Among them was city council member Andy Dulin, who told WSOC-TV, "We're going to fix it so people are safe when they go to the transfer center (transportation center).

"We're going to fix that problem."

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said the groups that roamed uptown streets late Saturday and early Sunday caused problems in several areas -- among them, the Charlotte Area Transit System's Transportation Center.

CATS officials on Monday noted that none of the 70 arrests made by police happened at the Transportation Center, but they said security will be increased there.

Meanwhile, police are still looking Tuesday morning for the suspect in a fatal shooting that occurred during the trouble.

The shooting took place shortly after 1 a.m. across Third Street from the Hilton hotel, two hours after Food Lion Speed Street ended. Antwan Terrell Smith, 22, was shot in the head and died at the scene. Durante Kavon James, also 22, was shot in the leg and taken to Carolinas Medical Center, where he was in stable condition on Sunday. An update on his condition was not available Tuesday.

Estes said the problems between police and the groups of young people followed a persistent pattern early Sunday.

"Someone would get into an argument, and a fight would start," he said. "We would come in and make arrests -- and sometimes we made arrests before the fight started. Then it would get quiet again for a while. Then a little while later, it would start again."

Officer Robert Fey, a spokesman for CMPD, said Sunday that police in uptown noticed some of those responsible for the trouble were flashing gang signs. But police have not said whether they think gang activity was involved in the series of fights and the shootings.

He said there was no additional information about the search for a suspect. Police spent Sunday interviewing witnesses to the shooting and used their K-9 unit in an attempt to find a suspect, without success.

Dozens of Smith's family and friends held a vigil Monday night, calling on anyone with information about the shooting to come forward, WBTV reported.

Friends told the TV station that Smith went to Speed Street on Saturday night. His sister, Shawnta Smith, told WBTV her brother was not the intended target but that he was defending his friends in the fight.

Charlotte Area Transit System spokeswoman Azania Herron said Monday that CATS ramped up security there Saturday night for Speed Street, the NASCAR-related event that draws thousands to uptown.

Extra officers were posted at the transit center, and no one was allowed to enter without providing a destination, among other precautions, a CATS news release said. None of the arrests Sunday occurred inside the center, the release said.

Monday afternoon, the center seemed back to normal. There were no signs of extra security, though two cars from the center's security force were parked along Trade Street.

Herron said CATS coordinates its security with police before every major event uptown and that the agency reviews its operating procedures after each event.

The incident Sunday was one of the worst uptown since violence broke out among large crowds after a Fourth of July fireworks show in 2006.

WBTV and WSOC-TV contributed.

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