Few answers so far

Catawba’s internal investigation of the fatal shooting of a student Friday night hasn’t yet yielded any answers, Dr. Kenneth Clapp, senior vice president, said this morning.

Clapp himself said he walked near Pine Knot Dorm 45 minutes before Darris Morris was shot and did not notice anything out of hand.

In any situation when an offense occurs, school officials investigate the incident and make a report to top school officials, Clapp said. He is not sure if the report will be made available to the public.

Clapp said he has done most of the interviews about the shooting.

So far, he has determined that security guards — he’s not sure how many — were making rounds Friday night. They knew of the party but did not see cause for concern, he said.

Clapp also interviewed residence assistants during his probe. They told him the party was under control and there was no cause for concern, he said.

“We’re still not sure exactly what happened,”Clapp said. “We may know something by the end of the week.”

Clapp said the school’s investigation aims to determine why and how senior Darris Morris could be shot and killed during a party.

An all-conference football player scheduled to graduate in May, Morris, 21, was gunned down during an argument at a party in Pine Knot Dorm. Six students from nearby Livingstone College are charged in the shooting. Two of those men were injured when Catawba security guard Allen Hinson returned fire on them after they shot, according to Salisbury Police.

Catawba officials began their investigation soon after the shooting happened and are working with police to find out exactly what happened that night.

Despite Friday’s shooting and the death of student Andrew Grooms in a dormitory fire, Clapp said the campus is safe compared to other schools its size.

“We should not generalize and say we are not a safe school. Most colleges during a four- or five-year period have much more reports of incidents,” Clapp said.

Those incidents, which colleges have been required to make public since 1998, include liquor law and drug law violations and illegal weapons possessions as well as murder, rape and more serious offenses.

In 1999 and 2000, Catawba reported three arrests for drug violations. During that same time, the college took disciplinary action on 15 drug violations.

Arrests are made when the situation is severe, such as when a student is believed to be trafficking, Clapp said.

Catawba reported two illegal weapon possessions in 1999 and none in 2000. The 1999 offenses were handled on campus.

The number of on-campus liquor law violations dropped nearly half from 1999 to 2000 — from 33 to 16.

By comparison, during 2000, similar-sized Lenoir-Rhyne, a Lutheran college in Hickory, reported 30 liquor law violations.

Catawba allows drinking by students of legal age.

“Anyone in violation of that is subject to discipline,” Clapp said. The 2001 numbers for liquor law violations will probably be higher than 16, Clapp said. Last year’s numbers have not been compiled.

Just two years ago, Livingstone officials reported 24 drug law violations and 19 liquor law violations that were handled administratively by the college. There were also two cases of possession of illegal weapons.

The drug and alcohol violations represented a significant increase from 1998, when the college reported five cases of each and a single case of a student possessing an illegal weapon.

But in 2000, the college reported a dramatic reversal. Mai Li Munoz-Adams, spokeswoman for Livingstone College, said the college reported no drug and alcohol violations on its campus in 2000.

Adams says that Dr. Algeania Freeman, since arriving at Livingstone in February 2001, has “strictly, strictly enforced” rules Livingstone had in place when she arrived.

“She has really demonstrated to the students that she has zero tolerance for drugs and alcohol,” Adams said this morning.

Livingstone is a dry campus and does not allow parties in the dormitories, Adams said.

The school also had a policy of randomly searching students’ dorm rooms without notice at least once a year.

Adams said she believes Freeman has increased the number of room searches, though she didn’t have any numbers available.

In the same reports to federal officials, Livingstone said that a small number of the drug and liquor law violations in 1998 and 1999 resulted in arrests and criminal prosecution.

In 1998, four arrests were made for drug violations, and in 1999, six arrests were made — two each for liquor, drug and illegal weapon violations.

Adams said that most of the 45 violations reported in 1999 were handled administratively by the college, with suspensions and other types of disciplinary action.

Staff writer Frank DeLoache contributed to this article.

Contact Jonathan Weaver at 704-797-4266 or jweaver@salisburypost.com .