3rd person in 2-week span charged with having gun at UNC Charlotte

CHARLOTTE — A 19-year-old is behind bars after he was accused of having a gun on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

University police arrested Brian Wise on Saturday after they say he had a pistol.

A spokesperson for the university said Wise’s arrest came after a traffic stop on Saturday evening. UNC Charlotte police found drugs along with the gun in the car’s center console, the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said Wise is not affiliated with the university was trespassing.

Wise was arrested and charged with felony possession of a firearm on educational property, possession of marijuana, and a traffic-related offense.

Wise is the third person arrested for having a gun on UNC Charlotte’s campus in the past two weeks.

Police arrested Ryan Briones last Tuesday for trespassing on campus. When officers searched him, they said they found a gun.

On March 15, Destiny Carr had a gun out while she chased after someone driving away from her in a campus parking deck. She was later arrested.

Those two incidents were not connected and no injuries were reported.

UNC Charlotte junior Hunter Chapman said she and her boyfriend are frustrated by the lack of communication from school administrators about recent gun incidents.

“At the East Deck, when someone was chasing a car with a gun or knife, we don’t get Niner Alerts from that,” Chapman said. “Back in February when we had the active shooter thing, it ended up being false, but there (were) no alerts for that either.”

In early February, someone reported shots were fired near the education building, which caused a massive police response and lockdown on campus.

Students said there was no Niner Alert sent during that incident.

“Well, we did, it was just a lot after the fact,” said student Liesl Kendall. “So, as it was happening, we didn’t really know. And the alert was that there was a police presence. It didn’t even say what the actual scare was. It just said police are in the area.”

Kendall remembers the mass shooting on UNC Charlotte’s campus in 2019 when two students were killed and four more were hurt.

“Going into college is stressful enough, and then going to a place where that already happened is kind of scary,” Kendall said. “But also, hopefully, because that happened, they’d make adjustments and be better prepared in the future.”

Niner Alerts are sent using a variety of methods based on the nature of the threat, according to UNC Charlotte Emergency Management.

A spokesperson said in a statement that a Niner Alert was not issued for these recent gun incidents because “There was no threat to campus safety in these situations because we either had the suspect in custody or knew with certainty they were no longer on our campus.”

Freshman Matthew Kingsley said he learned through his participation in student government that campus police are working on better notification.

“The chief of police came and talked to us,” he said. “So, they have installed an immediate alert that in the future will send out a message saying that there is an immediate police presence on campus, please avoid this area. So, they are currently working on that.”

Channel 9 reached out to UNC Charlotte to ask about that type of notification and to see if we can speak with someone from the university about the recent gun incidents.

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