Teen charged with first-degree murder:
Even more details in the murder of Rafael Huezo Castillo and the Orange High School shooting in Hillsborough, NC by Alvaro Rafael Castillo…
The first reports of what happened early Wednesday afternoon at Orange High School summoned a modern nightmare:
A trench-coat-clad teenager with guns and pipe bombs, shots fired, students hurt.
Asked why he had gone to Orange High School on Wednesday, Castillo, a former student, responded, “Columbine. Remember Columbine,” AP reported.
And we have status on one of the victims at the school…
About 1 p.m., an armed man “flew” past the parking lot’s guard house in a gray minivan and fired about eight shots, said Anne D’Annunzio, an Orange County Schools spokeswoman.
Two students were injured, neither seriously. Senior Tiffaney Utsman’s right shoulder was grazed by a bullet. An unidentified male student was hurt by broken glass, D’Annunzio said.
Utsman had been released from a hospital by Wednesday evening, said her mother, Champe Revis. “My feeling about Tiffaney is absolute relief that she really was not hurt at all,” Revis said.
Details of the shooting at the school…
Courtney Long, a senior, said she was outside when she saw a man jump from a minivan wearing a black hat, black trench coat, black sunglasses and a white T-shirt. He set off a long line of firecrackers, she said, sending up smoke. She said he fired at car tires, then at a school window, sending a bullet through the glass.
From a patio outside, senior Scott Cook heard an explosion and turned to see a man standing amid smoke in the parking lot.
“He pulled out a gun. … He fired in the air, then he aimed it toward the school. At that time, I high-tailed it out of there and ran into the building,” Cook said.
At the Orange High School parking lot, deputies found ammunition, weapons and homemade pipe bombs in the van. The Durham County Sheriff’s Office bomb squad removed the bombs.
I saw the video of the little bastard on my local news today. He literally is batshit crazy because he was smiling like he just won the lottery as they put him in the police car.
Castillo is due in court today.