</noinclude>On April 30, 2019, a mass shooting occurred at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. The shooting, which occurred on the last day of classes for the spring semester, sent six people to the hospital, two of whom were dead upon arrival, and left three others in critical condition. The shooting occurred inside a classroom in the Woodford A. Kennedy Building while students were giving a final presentation. The perpetrator, a former UNCC student named Trystan Andrew Terrell, was arrested shortly afterwards. In September 2019, he pleaded guilty to the murders and was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Events The shooting occurred during the last day of classes for the spring semester, at around 5:40 p.m. EDT, according to university officials. Around that time, the gunman entered Room 236 in the Kennedy Building, where approximately 60 students enrolled in "Science, Technology, & Society," a liberal studies course on the anthropology and philosophy of science, were delivering their final group presentations. The classroom, with a level floor and 14 separate tables, was designed to accommodate approximately 100 students, and had both a front and a rear entrance, according to survivor Rami Al-Ramadhan, who had been seated towards the front of the room. The course instructor was anthropology professor Adam Johnson.
The first presentation began at around 5:33 p.m., with each group having been assigned to produce a 10-minute video on their chosen topic. According to Johnson, who had been seated at a table taking notes and who did not hear a door open, the gunman then "burst into" the classroom from the left of the room and opened fire with a pistol. According to Al-Ramadhan, the gunman opened the front door and smiled before firing his weapon at random, showing no other reaction. As the classroom emptied in panic, Johnson quickly moved towards the other door and held it open to allow his students to exit. Pausing to help a student who had fallen, he led some of his students to an anthropology department office in Barnard Hall, located to the east of the Kennedy Building. They barricaded themselves inside the office, after which the anthropology department chair called 911. Other students who escaped took shelter in Prospector Hall, to the north of Kennedy, while others sheltered in their vehicles or in their residences. As the gunman continued firing, student Riley Howell tackled him and knocked him to the floor while yelling "go, go, go!" to his classmates, according to Al-Ramadhan. Howell, whose actions gave other students time to escape the room without injury, was shot at least three times, with the final bullet, which killed him, entering his jawbone by his right ear and traveling into his brain. The gunman subsequently told police detectives that Howell's tackling him had caused him to stop firing. After the gunman had emptied his gun by discharging it a total of 17 times during the attack, he "...laid the gun down, and sat on the ground," according to Johnson. The gunman then responded to a victim who had asked him to stop shooting, stating "I'm done."
UNC Charlotte police logged the initial report of the shooting at 5:43 p.m. At 5:50 p.m., UNC Charlotte's Office of Emergency Management alerted students via Niner Alerts on Twitter, saying "Shots reported near Kennedy. Run, Hide, Fight. Secure yourself immediately." At the time the shooting was reported, UNC Charlotte police chief Jeff Baker and around 14 of his officers were reviewing security plans for a Waka Flocka Flame concert scheduled to be held on campus that evening; according to Baker, "when we heard this call come out we all converged [on the Kennedy Building] almost immediately." UNC Charlotte Police Sergeant Richard Gundacker was the first of the officers to enter the building. According to an affidavit submitted to a magistrate, Gundacker entered Room 236 and yelled to the survivors to identify the gunman, who then identified himself. Gundacker, who prior to joining the UNC Charlotte Police had retired from the New York City Police Department (1995–2015) in 2015 as a detective, was able to disarm the gunman, recovering the Glock pistol he had used along with multiple gun magazines in a black leather bag.
Charlotte Fire Department crews arrived on scene at 5:45 p.m. from nearby Fire Station 27 and immediately began caring for gunshot patients. More than 75 Charlotte Fire Department personnel converged on the scene in less than 15 minutes including more than 15 Special Tactical Unit (PAC) fire personnel. Ambulances from Mecklenburg EMS Agency (MEDIC) arrived on the scene by 5:55 p.m. along with additional law enforcement resources. The gunman was arrested by 5:44 p.m. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department SWAT in conjunction with Charlotte Fire Department Special Tactical Units had secured buildings on campus by 6:35 p.m., with the suspected gunman identified as a male student at UNCC at 6:55 p.m. Governor Roy Cooper was briefed about the shooting by 7:11 p.m. By 7:30 p.m., the gunman, by then identified as Trystan A. Terrell, had been brought to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Jail, with the CMPD declaring the campus secure at 7:40 p.m. UNC Charlotte remained on lockdown until around 10:51 p.m. UNC Charlotte Police Department, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Office of Emergency Management established a family reunification center at the Harris Teeter in University City.
Victims
There were six victims of the shooting, all current students. The two students who were killed were 19-year-old Ellis Parlier and 21-year-old Riley Howell. The others injured were 19-year-old Drew Pescaro, 20-year-old Sean DeHart, 20-year-old Rami Al-Ramadhan, and 23-year old Emily Houpt. The four wounded students were hospitalized, and three underwent surgery. Al-Ramadhan was hit by two bullets, one grazing an arm and another hitting his stomach; Pescaro was hit by a bullet that entered his back about an inch from his spine and pierced his abdomen, just missing his stomach and liver.
Parlier was from Midland and was a graduate of Central Academy of Technology and Arts. Howell was from Waynesville and was a graduate of T. C. Roberson High School, where he had run cross country and played on the soccer team. Howell was an environmental studies major at UNC Charlotte. Per his family, he dreamt of becoming a firefighter and put off military school for college. Al-Ramadhan is an international student from Saihat who is studying engineering. Al-Ramadhan's family in Saudi Arabia was notified of the shooting. DeHart graduated from Cardinal Gibbons Catholic High School in Raleigh. Pescaro, from Apex, is a graduate of Middle Creek High School in Cary, and is studying communications at UNC Charlotte. He is a sportswriter for the student newspaper, a video assistant for the football team, and co-host of the UNCC sports talk show Fans with Attitude. Houpt, a native of Charlotte, is a global studies major at UNC Charlotte and a former intern at The Worlds Affairs Council of Charlotte.
Howell, who was a Reserve Officer Training Corps cadet, was buried with full military honors and an honor guard on May 5. Over 1,000 people attended Howell's funeral at Lake Junaluska, near his hometown of Waynesville. Howell was also posthumously awarded the ROTC Medal for Heroism and the Congressional Medal of Honor Society's Citizen Honors Award, as well as a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star which were presented to his family. In December 2019, the publication Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - The Visual Dictionary included "Jedi Master and historian Ri-Lee Howell."
Chancellor Phillip Dubois said the university would award Howell and Parlier "degrees in memoriam" at the spring commencement, with a special presentation ceremony for Houpt, who was expected to recover sufficiently enough to personally attend.
Perpetrator
Trystan Andrew Terrell (born June 6, 1996) is a former history undergraduate at UNC Charlotte who had withdrawn from the university on February 14, 2019. Born in Texas and a registered voter in Mecklenburg County, he had no prior criminal record in either North Carolina or in Texas. UNC Charlotte police said they had not noted him as a potential threat prior to the shooting. He was inactive on social media networks, and had legally purchased the handgun he allegedly used.
Terrell moved to North Carolina with his family in 2014, according to his grandfather Paul Rold of Arlington, Texas. He spent his high school years in a middle-class neighborhood in Mansfield, Texas, where he attended Mansfield High School. According to Rold, Terrell and his father Craig, who had taken a job as an auditor for the Charlotte city government, had moved to Charlotte for a fresh start and new surroundings. His mother Robyn Ann, who lived in Mansfield from 1999 until her death from breast cancer in December 2011, had worked as a paraprofessional educator with the Mansfield school district. Terrell's former neighbors said he was devastated by his mother's death, and that the family moved because Terrell wanted a change of scenery. He has an older sister who resides in Baltimore.
Rold described his grandson as autistic and socially reserved. He said Terrell dreamed of working in South America, and taught himself French and Portuguese with the aid of a language learning program Rold had bought for him. According to Rold, his grandson never showed any interest in firearms or other weapons, and that Terrell's actions were those of "someone foreign to me. This is not in his DNA." He further said his grandson was critical of American gun culture, saying it was too easy for people to obtain firearms in the United States, and that his grandson had specifically referenced New Zealand's crackdown on guns following the Christchurch mosque shootings. Rold described his grandson as "not bubbly and effervescent, rather shy, quiet, studious, not athletic," though he had tried to introduce his grandson to baseball and golf, with no success. Rold said he blamed lax gun laws for making firearms too easy to obtain, and that if his grandson "had not been able to secure a weapon, this would never have happened." He did not believe his grandson had a mental illness which would have disposed him to commit violence, "but then I’m not a psychologist. You would never have believed this could have happened, that he would have done something like this."