Trystan Terrell: Student arrested over deadly North Carolina university shooting
The man accused of shooting two people dead on a college campus has been filmed smirking as he told reporters: "I went into a classroom and shot some guys."
Trystan Andrew Terrell made the chilling remarks as he was cuffed and taken into custody on Tuesday night, shortly after two people were killed and four injured at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Charlotte.
The shooting began around 5.40pm, when Terrell entered an anthropology class and began shooting, according to witnesses, until he ran out of bullets.
In an interview on Wednesday with local radio, UNC Chancellor Phillip Dubois named those who were fatally injured as Ellis R Parlier, 19, and Riley C Howell, 21.
Mr Dubois said that three of the injured students had undergone surgery and were expected to make a full recovery. A fourth student, who was less seriously injured, has been treated and released by a hospital.
CBS News reports that the entire campus was put on lockdown following the start of the shooting. UNC sophomore Tristan Field, who was in the anthropology classroom during the shooting, told CBS that he believes Mr Terrell sat in the room for “10 minutes” with the students before opening fire.
Mr Field described the panic as many as 50 students attempting to leave the room when the shooting began. He had also tweeted during the shooting, writing on Tuesday night “There was an active shooter in my room in the Kennedy building at UNC Charlotte, get to safety immediately.”
“Why would anyone do this?” his tweets continued. “We were just doing presentations and someone started shooting up the room. We didn't do anything but our work. Stay safe UNCC.”
On Twitter early Wednesday morning, the professor of the anthropology class said his students were in the midst of giving team presentations when the shooting began.
Mr Terrell’s grandfather, Paul Rold, told the Associated Press that Mr Terrell was previously enrolled at the university, but it’s unclear if he was a student at the time of the shooting. Mr Rold says his grandson grew up in Texas and moved to North Carolina with his father after his mother died in 2011.
