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On Monday, Jatwan Cuffie was a freshman from Butler High College who was starting his school week.
Tuesday afternoon, the 16-year-old must appear in court as accused of murder, in connection with the shooting death of a student comrade.
Authorities say Cuffie shot and killed 16-year-old Bobby McKeithen in the hallway of a crowded school on Monday, shortly after the opening of 2100 classrooms.
Shortly before 2 pm, Cuffie appeared before Judge David Strickland of the Mecklenburg District Court in the downtown Charlotte courtroom. His lawyer informed Judge Cuffie that he had no previous conviction and that he could not be sentenced to death because of his age. He requested that Cuffie be allowed to stay with his mother under electronic surveillance prior to trial.
Strickland said the court would not consider that and after less than four minutes, Cuffie was taken out of the courtroom. He did not speak during his brief appearance. A bail hearing was scheduled for November 7.
Under North American law, the first year high school student will be treated in court as an adult. If found guilty of first degree murder, Cuffie incurs a mandatory life sentence with no possibility of parole.
The student went without incident to school resource officers shortly after the shooting, authorities said.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg superintendent of schools, Clayton Wilcox, said Monday that the incident had "started with uncontrollable bullying, and that fear had invaded a young man who had brought a gun to solve the problem" .
Wilcox would not elaborate.
Jourdan Perry, a sophomore sophomore who said he was a close friend of McKeithen, described the victim as "caring and loving."
"Bobby did not intimidate anyone," said Perry. "I felt like he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it was not supposed to happen to him."
Matthews High School, like its counterparts across the country, has seen a surge in student activism, active shooter drills and an intensification of safety procedures in schools since the mass shooting of a school in February in Parkland, Florida.
As soon as information about Butler's shots was leaked through text messages and social media, scared parents invaded the school, even as CMS was trying to lock the campus for the emergency officers and police investigators.
According to a review of Education Week, it is the 22nd shooting in a school that resulted in death or injury in 2018.
Matthews police captain Stason Tyrrell said the shooting followed a fight that erupted in a room near the school cafeteria at around 7:15 am, while classes were on the verge of to start. Many students "witnessed this tragedy" and were rushed to the nearest classrooms, said Wilcox, but no one else was hurt.
For nearly 10 minutes, as the police converged, Tyrrell stated that no one really knew where the gunman was or where there was more than one armed person. Then a butler's teacher told the police that she was with the young man who had confessed to being killed and was ready to surrender, said Tyrrell.
McKeithen was taken to the Carolinas Medical Center, where he died, the police said.
Classmates described McKeithen as a good friend who loved basketball and the Fortnite video game.
"He was really funny, when I had problems at school or at home, he always helped me," said Gabby Kaminsky, a Grade 10 student, who called McKeithen a best friend . "He wanted to graduate early, I know he'd talked about it before."
"He never gave up on you or your friendship with him, no matter if things got complicated," said Tiana Scrofani, 10th.
Staff writers Cassie Cope and Ely Portillo contributed.
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