Former football player at Fayetteville State University shot on campus, reports say
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A campus shooting at Fayetteville State University Monday night left a former football player injured, according to news outlets.
Lavonte Carter, 20, of Fayetteville was found on campus with numerous gunshot wounds and was taken to the hospital in serious condition, CBS17 reported.
Carter played on the university’s football team last year, according to WRAL. It wasn’t immediately clear if this was a targeted shooting, the news outlet said.
Police identified the alleged shooter as 24-year-old Codondrea Purdie, the Fayetteville Observer reported.
Purdie was charged with attempted first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and was placed under a $750,000 bond, according to police records.
But the New Bern man told a judge during his first court appearance Tuesday he was not the shooter, according to CBS17.
“I stayed on scene. I didn’t leave the scene. I stayed there the whole time. I cooperated with police,” Purdie said in court, the news outlet reported.
Fayetteville Police Department confirmed on Facebook late Monday there was a shooting on campus and a suspect in custody, but said there was no active shooter.
Campus safety reports show the incident occurred around 8:30 p.m. outside Seabrook Auditorium on campus.
The university was put on lockdown for about 35 minutes during the shooting, the Fayetteville Observer reported.
FSU is the safest HBCU in North Carolina, according to a college campus safety report released this year.
It’s also the fourth safest in the state and ranks 119 out of 500 in the country, the report states.
“We take the safety and well-being of our students, faculty, staff, and visitors to our campus very seriously and quite a bit of effort goes into making certain that we provide a safe and secure environment for all,” Renarde Earl, associate vice chancellor for police and public safety at FSU, said when the report was released.
This story was originally published September 17, 2019 at 3:40 PM with the headline "Former football player at Fayetteville State University shot on campus, reports say."
