Shotgun blasts puncture school’s game, practice

By BOB HIGH

“The gunfire outside Central Middle School Monday afternoon makes us feel helpless,” Dr. Danny McPherson, superintendent of Whiteville City Schools, said Wednesday evening.

The obviously upset McPherson was addressing the outburst of gunfire in the West Side Park adjacent to the school’s athletic complex where Central’s football and step teams were practicing, and four middle schools were holding a volleyball tourney inside the gym. There were no injuries in 4 p.m. shooting.

“Every time something like this happens it reaffirms our situation. We in the school system and the community are just helpless. There’s got to be an answer,” McPherson added.

He said the school board would confront the longtime problem at its November meeting, and said he was more than thankful none of the students or adults involved in the athletic activities Monday were harmed.

Central School Police Officer James White alerted his fellow officers Monday to the gunfire situation and several units quickly responded. “We had some units who happened to be nearby and they were able to get there quick enough that they chased some of the people involved,” Police Chief Jerry Britt declared.

A police report notes the following:

Two teenage boys – said by police to be members of rival gangs – agreed to meet in the park. Within a few minutes of the two teens arriving, friends of both also gathered.

It is not clear what sparked the two shotgun blasts – both apparently firing shells loaded with small pellets. The football players were adjacent to the park property in a northerly direction. The shots were apparently fired in an east-west direction.

Police found one suspect – Tyrell Rashi James, 18, of West Calhoun Street -- in a Burkhead Street apartment and collared another – Antonio Alex Dobie, 17, a Whiteville High School student -- in front of his home in the 400 block of South Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.

Dobie and James were both charged with misdemeanor counts of assault with a deadly weapon. The shotguns were not recovered.

A parked work van was struck by some shotgun pellets and damaged an estimated $100. The van was parked near the entrance to the park.

McPherson noted that there was an immediate lock-down of students and adults in the gym where children and parents from Central, plus middle schools in Chadbourn, Tabor City and Williams Township were involved in the volleyball tournament. And, Central’s cheerleaders were also practicing inside one of the buildings.

The practicing football players and coaches, plus members of the school’s step team, moved quickly inside the school buildings. The lockdown was lifted after what McPherson termed 30 to 40 minutes.

“It’s important to understand on this occasion we had children significantly frightened by this experience. Tuesday we had students who expressed their concerns and the faculty, staff and counselors spent considerable time with them,” the superintendent added.

“This reccurring problem continues to plague the children and adults in our school, plus those in the community. It’s a problem that must be addressed,” McPherson stated.

Chief Britt said police would continue to patrol often on the city’s west side where several incidents of violence have taken place during the past two years. The park was closed for about 10 days earlier this year after one youth was critically injured because of a beating by a several males.