CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A suspect is in custody after two students from Albemarle Middle School were hurt by shattered glass when gunfire struck a school bus in east Charlotte on Monday.
"How many more shootings is it going to take?" said Greg Asciutto, Executive Director of CharlotteEAST, a community development organization.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said officers' preliminary investigation indicated the bus was caught in the crossfire between people in a drug-related dispute, and that it was not the intended target.
Officers later found 21-year-old Lamarius Ramel Anthony leaving the area of the shooting, and he was quickly arrested.
Anthony is now charged with felony possession of cocaine and carrying a concealed weapon. He's being held in jail on a $9,000 bond.
However, Asciutto says all crimes involving children, whether intentional or not, need to stop.
"The trauma that not just those kids, but parents in the entire school community have to go through after an incident like that is, it's intense," Asciutto said. "We can and we have to do better."
CharlotteEAST helped form a cohort of other neighborhood organizations to prevent area violence in the spring, after the shooting death of four officers in the east Charlotte area.
"So often the needs of our specific community are not taken into account when crafting overall strategies, particularly with our cultural, our linguistic and our racial differences that we have in our community," Asciutto said.
The cohort decided on three action items:
- Offer youth mentorship
- Provide place-based resources
- Improve the physical environment
Asciutto says anyone can contribute to these goals, even without the overarching support he'd like.
"I believe [Charlotte City] Council cares. Like I do, I believe. But they could care more," Asciutto says. "Is that force and that pressure top-down sufficient that we can stop these things? And right now, I don't believe it is."
Contact Julie Kay at juliekay@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.