Four Charged In Arkansas Campus Shooting
A prosecutor says four men have been charged with two counts of capital murder and other felonies in a shooting at the University of Central Arkansas that killed two students and injured another man.
Prosecutor Marcus Vaden says the men also face charges of terroristic threatening, illegally possessing a firearm, firing a weapon from a car and having a handgun on a public school property. The men could face the death penalty or a life sentence if convicted on one of the capital murder charges.
The men - Kawin Brockton, 19, of Conway; Kelsey Perry, 19, of Morrilton; Mario Toney, 20, of Little Rock; and Brandon Wade, 20, of Lake Village - are being held without bond at the Faulkner County Jail.
The shooting took place Sunday night outside a dormitory at the college in Conway, about 30 miles north of Little Rock. The shooting's survivor was shot in the leg but has been released from the hospital.
Classes resumed Tuesday for the first time since the weekend shootings. The 12,500-student campus was quiet Monday, with police cars cruising the streets and officers roaming the grounds in flak jackets and blue jeans.
The shooting took place in an alley between a dormitory and the Snow Fine Arts Center. Two resident advisers worked in vain to revive one of the two wounded students as he gasped for air.
"I was trying to call 911, but I was shaking too bad so I couldn't," said T.J. Frix, a freshman who saw the rescue attempt. He said the resident advisers "both handled it really well. They stepped into action while everyone else" panicked.
Five minutes passed before paramedics made it to the dorm. Two men were bleeding in the hallway; one of them died. A third victim lay dead on the sidewalk outside the dorm.
Frix, 18, of Russellville, said he heard five gunshots as he studied for a communication exam in his dorm room. He initially dismissed the noise.
"I was like, `Maybe it's just fireworks,'" he said.
But soon, the two bleeding men were in the hallway right outside his room.
Junior Jeremy Rucker said he saw Norman hobbling around the hallway, bleeding from his leg wound. Henderson lay on the floor, his chest bleeding from a gunshot wound as the sound of his labored breathing filled the hall, said Rucker, 20, of Little Rock.
Henderson stopped breathing and the two resident advisers immediately began to perform CPR on him, Rucker said. Other resident advisers surrounded them to keep onlookers back, he said.
"This is just an awful tragedy. It's the worst thing that can happen on a college campus," he said. "We have start looking at everything."
Students held a candlelight vigil Monday night to remember the slain students. Block (left) was a sophomore pre-engineering major; Henderson was a freshman undecided about what he wanted to major in.
Henderson "was a real quiet guy. He got along with everybody," Rucker said. "That would be the last thing I would expect to happen to him."