Charlotte quiet as victim returns home
Alleged gunman skips initial court appearance
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The campus has turned quiet. Flowers and candles fill the steps outside the building where two students were killed. Exams have been postponed or canceled.
For students, professors and administrators, Tuesday’s shooting that left two dead and four wounded at the University of North Carolina-charlotte has altered what they thought was a safe space.
“My gut tells me that was one of those moments where everything from this point on will be different. I can’t imagine us going unaltered. It’s a 9/11, it’s a Kennedy assassination, it’s a Challenger disaster, it’s a death of a family member kind of moment,” said Tricia Kent, an archivist who has spent 33 years at the school.
Student Cooper Creech said his life has changed forever.
Creech was in the classroom where the six students were shot.
The medic with the National Guard ran to save his life when the gunman opened fire, but he stayed close to the building and gave first aid to a wounded classmate.
“I am alive and had angels watching over me, for sure. I’m just not going to let a second chance at life like this get away from me,” said Creech.
The gunman picked Kennedy Hall specifically, but detectives haven’t determined if he chose the anthropology class or certain individuals as targets, Charlotte-mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said.
The man charged in the shooting, Trystan Andrew Terrell, was a student at the university but withdrew before the end of this semester, officials said.
Terrell, 22, decided not to attend his first court appearance Thursday to have the two counts of first-degree murder, four counts of first-degree attempted murder and other charges read to him.
While Terrell was skipping his court appearance, the body of a slain student hailed as a hero arrived back in his hometown with a police escort.
Dozens of people stood on streets with U.S. flags at the end of the 150mile journey west from Charlotte to Riley Howell’s mountain hometown of Waynesville.
Visitation will be Saturday and a memorial service Sunday for Howell, 21, who Putney said saved a number of lives by charging and tackling the gunman.