Neighbors thought they were hearing firecrackers

Sue Peeler and her husband, Jack, were just going to bed about 11 p.m. Friday when they heard what sounded like firecrackers. Peeler lives on Yost Street, adjacent to the Catawba College campus.

“We heard a loud report of something hitting metal,”Sue said. “After that, we heard a couple of series of shots. We all thought it was probably firecrackers.”

Students at the college are always setting firecrackers off, she said. But this time the popping sounds were “more than a half-dozen” gunshots.

“I could hear loud voices shouting and mostly male voices,” Sue said.

“Nobody really got alarmed until we saw the blue lights flashing on the police cars,”she said. From then on, she watched out her window to the scene at Catawba.

Sue watched the police secure the scene with crime scene tape. She watched the rescue workers transport hurt victims to the hospital. She never suspected that after all was said and done, a student from Catawba College would be fatally wounded.

“It was, of course, shocking,” Sue said. “I am just so sorry to hear that.”

The Peelers have lived on the corner of Yost Street and Summit Avenue since 1974. Sue said she has never seen violence of this magnitude in the area.

“I don’t remember anything like this,” she said. “I don’t know what the far-reaching effects will be.

“I think this is a sign of the times that we have violence like this on a normally safe campus.”

Other neighbors agree.

“You don’t know what could happen when they start firing out of cars and that sort of thing,” said college alumni and Mahaley Avenue resident Henry Bernhardt.

Bernhardt and his wife, Joann, live about a quarter of a mile from the campus, but he could still hear the shots.

“It sounded to me like there were at least five in rapid order, a lull, and then another,” Bernhardt said about the shots.

“I knew they were shots because I was in World War II infantry,”he said. “At the time, I didn’t think much about it, and then later on, I heard all the ambulances.”

He added that every ambulance in Rowan County must have been at the college because of all the sirens he heard.

“I’m glad I am not at Catawba right now,”Bernhardt said. “I surely do hate this...to see this happen.”

He said that all he can do is hope for the best.

“I don’t know what to expect,”he added.

“Catawba has been there for an awful long time. I think they can weather this, (but) Catawba needs friends right now.”

He said he hopes the students at Catawba will be more careful about their parties in the future.

“If they have knowledge about anybody with a gun, they should report it. They ought to report anybody that has a gun,”Bernhardt added.

“This wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t had guns...Whatever the situation, and judging how mad they were, a fine young fellow wouldn’t be dead right now if there hadn’t been guns.”

Aaron Post, a student at Salisbury High School, was walking on the nature trail at the college when he heard shouting.

“I just kept on walking and I heard a fire engine,” Post said.

“When I got to my house, I just saw a whole bunch of lights and my dad had said somebody had been shot.”

On the way home, he had seen a group of men walking to the college.

“When I heard there was a shooting, I was scared because I thought it could have been those guys,”he said.

His father, Sammy Post, said he heard 10 or more shots. The Posts have lived in the neighborhood for a long time, and Sammy Post grew up there.

“I thought it might have been firecrackers,” Post said, echoing Sue Peeler’s first impression.

“It sounded like people were shooting at each other.”

They were.

Contact Joanie Morris at 704-797-4264 or jmorris@salisburypost.com .