Student killed tackling gunman

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A North Carolina college student tackled a gunman who opened fire in a classroom, saving others’ lives but losing his own in the process, the police chief said Wednesday.

Riley Howell, 21, was among the students gathered for end-ofyear presentations in an anthropology class at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte when a gunman began shooting students with a pistol. Howell and another student were killed; four others were wounded.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said Howell “took the assailant off his feet,” but was fatally wounded while doing so. He said Howell did what police train people to do in active shooter situations.

“You’re either going to run, you’re going to hide and shield, or you’re going to take the fight to the assailant. Having no place to run and hide, he did the last. But for his work, the assailant may not have been disarmed,” Putney said.

The motive wasn’t immediately clear for suspect Trystan Andrew Terrell, who UNC-Charlotte spokeswoman Buffy Stephens said had been enrolled at the school but withdrew during the current semester. Campus Police Chief Jeff Baker said Terrell had not appeared on their radar as a potential threat.

“I just went into a classroom and shot the guys,” Terrell told reporters Tuesday as officers led him in handcuffs into a law enforcement building.

Terrell, 22, was booked on two counts of murder and four counts of attempted murder among other charges.