Black nurse pulls onto the wrong North Carolina driveway. Then an off-duty officer and his wife turn their guns on her: ‘We’re going to shoot you’

On the night after Thanksgiving in 2018, Kandice Robinson was apparently trying to find an elderly client’s home in Mint Hill, a suburb outside Charlotte, for an overnight nursing shift. According to Atlanta Black Star, she said it was her first time at the address. Robinson recalled stopping to ask an older woman outside a home for directions before asking if she could use the driveway to turn around. The woman agreed and went back inside, Robinson said.

As she completed the turn, Robinson said Matthews Police Officer Nick Helms, who was off duty and lived in that Mint Hill neighborhood, and his wife, Samantha, came out of the house with guns drawn on her. They asked why she was there so late, and she said she explained that she was a nurse looking for a patient’s address and that the woman outside had tried to help her. She said she was in nursing scrubs at the time.

Robinson said Helms answered that he did not believe her and kept a gun aimed at her face. She said the pair held her in place for about 15 minutes before they allowed her to drive away. When she reached the patient’s house, Robinson said she was trembling and too frightened to work, and the patient’s wife ended up looking after her for the rest of the night.

Former Matthews officer asks prosecutors to review the 2018 driveway stop as kidnapping

Robinson said Helms shouted, “Don’t move! We’re going to shoot you in the head!” and also said, “We’re going to shoot you in the face!” After she glanced toward the front porch, she said he warned, “If you move one more time, I’m going to shoot you in your face,” and told her to keep both hands on the wheel. Among the words she said she heard while the weapons were pointed at her was, “We’re going to shoot you.”

Robinson said Samantha Helms went inside to talk with the older woman, who Robinson later learned was Helms’ grandmother, then returned and told her husband that Robinson was telling the truth and to put the gun down. The incident is part of a broader pattern of racial profiling in traffic stops, as an Ohio woman learned she was registered as Black after repeatedly being pulled over.  

Robinson said Helms did not lower it right away, kept the barrel inside her car window, and pushed it closer once his wife stepped aside. She said the wife yelled at him about four times to drop the weapon before they finally let her leave.

Robinson said a prosecutor later called the episode a “simple mistake.” She said a simple mistake is supposed to come with an apology.

Tyler Ross, who joined the Matthews Police Department in 2022 as a Black officer and was fired in 2025, said he came across Robinson’s case after he lost his job and began asking the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office to take another look.

Ross said keeping someone in a car at gunpoint with no freedom to leave meets North Carolina’s definition of kidnapping. He noted that the state generally does not put a time limit on felony charges.

Ross said he recorded Assistant District Attorney Bruce Lillie telling him the office could not prove intent, which was why Helms was never charged.

Ross said that the explanation does not match the statute, which he said covers unlawful restraint at gunpoint without needing the intent the DA described. He also said Mint Hill never ran a full investigation, never sent the file to prosecutors, and kept identities out of public paperwork. A department report Ross obtained blacked out the officer’s name and chunks of the narrative, he said.

Ross said racial disrespect started soon after he arrived at Matthews PD, including a field training officer who told him his “Black a– deserves a military beatdown” over the way he entered roll call. Allegations of racial profiling by police are not isolated, as in an Illinois case where a woman says an officer followed her home for no apparent reason and told her ‘Because I can.’

He said white officers hired after him received DWI training and lateral promotions that he was denied. The department fired him in January 2025, citing policy violations and officer safety, after a hotel trespass call in which a man with a warrant left in an Uber. Ross said he had no lawful basis to detain the man any longer. He said an EEOC complaint about his termination is still open.

Robinson said she did not learn Helms’ name until Ross started asking questions years later. She said the night left her unable to sleep for years and that the 2018 police response did not feel like a serious inquiry. Helms has since been promoted to sergeant. Ross said that outcome, set against his own firing over alleged policy breaches, is why he pressed the district attorney’s office to reopen the matter.