Shemar Hayes was 23 years old and playing college football when he was murdered in Charlotte in March 2024. His father, Ronald Hayes, has spent the two and a half years since trying to turn that into something — he wrote a book about it, and he talks publicly about gun violence.

A video crew asked him to tell that story on camera. He agreed. He says he was told it was an independent group making an ad about gun violence.

It was not. It was a political attack ad against Roy Cooper, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat Michael Whatley is running for.

"I have already been swindled into an ad that was about politics, which I don't want to be about," Hayes told NC Newsline on Monday.

The ad has been viewed more than 25 million times on YouTube. It is part of a $17 million advertising campaign against Cooper, paid for by the Senate Leadership Fund — the super PAC aligned with Senate Republican leadership, working to put Whatley in the Senate.

The claim at the center of the ad is false

The ad implies that Cooper let Shemar Hayes' killer out of prison early, as part of a COVID-era legal settlement.

Tyzavian Smith, the man convicted of killing Shemar, was 18 years old at the time of the murder. He was not in prison. He had no prior adult record. There was no early release, because there was nothing to be released from.

That is not a matter of interpretation or emphasis. The ad's premise requires a man to have been let out of prison who had never been in one.

The father found out by watching television

Hayes said he called the ad's makers after he saw it.

"Once I saw the commercial, I called [the ad makers] back and I asked them again, and they stated again that they are independent. I told them that I felt that this was deceiving, it was conniving and it was sneaky how they used me and my family to get out their word."

He is a Democrat who says he has voted for Cooper in the past, and he now gets stopped in the street by people asking whether he's a Democrat or a Republican.

"The commercial looks as if I'm trying to sway North Carolinians from voting the way that they want to vote, and that wasn't my agenda. I wanted to let the community know about gun violence and about my son being murdered."

The crew filmed him talking about his book, Living Through Loss: A Journey of Healing and Hope, and took photographs of it. None of that made the ad.

"That was not their agenda. They could care less than a damn about me and my books."

Gun violence survivors' advocates want it off the air

North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, a statewide group, called on television stations across the state to pull the ad.

"Losing a child is every parent's worst nightmare," said executive director Becky Ceartas. "Every survivor of gun violence deserves to be treated with respect and care if they decide to relive the most horrible day of their lives by telling you their story."

"Our organization works with survivors of gun violence throughout the state, and we have witnessed how hard and traumatic it is for them to tell their stories. It requires an immense amount of trust and faith that the person you are sharing this deeply personal experience with will treat it with dignity and respect."

There is a bitter irony in what Hayes actually believes. He blames his son's death on gun laws he considers too weak to keep firearms away from people who will use them to hurt someone. The campaign that used his grief spent $17 million attacking Cooper, and put none of it toward the thing Hayes actually wanted to talk about.

This is not the only killing the same super PAC has used against Cooper

The Senate Leadership Fund has done a version of this more than once, for the same candidate, in the same race.

In August, Popular Information found that a site calling itself "The North Carolinian" — presenting as "Independent Journalism for North Carolina" — is fully controlled by the Senate Leadership Fund. Its unbylined article, published on August 21 — sixteen days after the Hayes ad went up — blamed Cooper for a killing, and never mentioned that the killing happened in South Carolina.

Two stories, two grieving families, two claims that fall apart the moment anyone checks the facts. Both paid for by the same super PAC, both aimed at the same opponent, both in service of the same candidate.

Whatley knows exactly how this works

Whatley is not a political novice who happens to be the accidental beneficiary of outside spending he doesn't understand. He ran the Republican National Committee — as recently as July 2025 he was giving interviews as "RNC chair", laying out the party's strategy for these midterms — and before that he chaired the North Carolina Republican Party. Running the party's political operation was his job.

NC Newsline could not reach the Senate Leadership Fund for comment.

Hayes, for his part, says he plans to talk to Cooper — to tell him the harm wasn't intended.

"I want to turn this tragedy into something beautiful that can possibly make a change. I want my son's name to be able to be used to make this change."

What the record shows

A super PAC spending $17 million to elect Michael Whatley to the Senate filmed a father talking about his murdered son, told him the ad was about gun violence, and used it to blame Roy Cooper for the killing. The man convicted of that murder was 18, had never been in prison, and had no prior adult record, so the ad's central claim cannot be true. The ad has been viewed more than 25 million times on YouTube. It is not the only killing the same super PAC has attached to Cooper on Whatley's behalf, and another one happened in a different state.

Sources

NC father at center of US Senate ad says he was 'swindled' by GOP political operatives — NC Newsline, August 31, 2026, by Greg Childress.

Robin Adams Cheeley: 'Deceitful, conniving and sneaky.' Anti-Cooper ad featuring grieving Black father twists facts — Greensboro News & Record, August 26, 2026.