ATLANTA — A group of 10th-grade students from an Atlanta school were on Florida State University’s campus when a shooter opened fire at the university’s school union.
Students from Drew Charter School arrived back home late Thursday night and spoke with Channel 2’s Courtney Francisco about the terrifying situation.
Melvin Hodges’ son was one of the Drew Charter students visiting FSU for a college tour when a shooting rampage started on campus.
“Just relieved. No one wants to be in a situation like that where their baby is out there and they don’t know if they’re coming home or not,” Hodges said.
The students told Francisco that the gunfire started around noon when they were in the cafeteria.
“We had to hide out, and it was … it’s not fair. I’m just really mad about it. It’s not something that we deserve,” Asante Hodges said.
They hid there, on lockdown for three hours, until police said it was safe to leave.
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“While we were in there, it was really hard to know what was going on because obviously the news didn’t know much, and we had no way of getting a lot of the information. All we knew is what people who ran in there were telling us,” Drew Charter student Noah Sallee said.
Parents back home agreed.
“It was a long three hours,” Melvin Hodges said.
Drew Charter sent letters informing them that the students and staff were together on lockdown,
And another letter alerted parents when they were all safe and, on the bus, back home to Atlanta.
“As soon as we got in the bus, it was like a big, big elephant had been taken off of our chests and we just felt a lot better,” Asante Hodges said.
But he said the real relief came when he was able to hug his dad.
Families at Drew Charter are thinking of those at FSU who did not make it home Thursday night.
“It’s definitely sad that their trip was marred by something of this nature,” Melvin Hodges said.
Channel 2 Action News also learned on Thursday that Georgia Tech’s softball team was traveling to Tallahassee to play FSU this weekend.
The associate athletic director, Mike Flynn, confirmed the team was on their way when the shooting happened, uncertain how far they were from campus.
Florida State athletics posted a cancellation notice on social media.
Georgia Tech posted a photo that said, “Georgia Tech Athletics sends its deepest condolences to the Florida State community.”
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