A bullet tore into a building at Columbia High School on Thursday evening after someone opened fire from a vehicle at a specific person nearby, according to the Tyrrell County Sheriff's Office. Deputies say the shooting happened around 7 p.m. and was not aimed at the school or anyone inside it, but the stray round still found its way into the campus structure in the small North Carolina town of Columbia.
The gunfire involved multiple shots fired from a vehicle at a targeted individual, according to the sheriff's office, as reported by WCTI. One of those bullets struck the school building, though investigators have stressed that students and staff were not the target of the shooting. The station reports that investigators have leads they are following up on as the case continues.
Columbia High School is part of Tyrrell County School District. The campus sits in Tyrrell County, which, per Carolina Demography, is North Carolina's least populous county with just 3,245 residents as of the 2020 Census. In a community that small, an incident touching the high school ripples quickly through the wider area.
A District Built Around One Campus Complex
Tyrrell County Schools operates only three public schools in the entire district — Columbia High School, Columbia Middle School, and Tyrrell Elementary School — according to the district itself. That centralized structure means any safety event at the high school effectively touches the county's entire public education system at once. The district's current superintendent, Brianna Williams, previously served as Columbia High School's principal before stepping into the top administrative role.
This is not the first time the Columbia school complex has been drawn into a law enforcement response. In September 2024, Columbia High School, Columbia Middle School, and Tyrrell Elementary School were placed on modified lockdown while deputies searched for a fleeing suspect near U.S. Route 64, according to police records reported by the Albemarle Observer. That suspect was ultimately located and taken into custody with the help of a K-9 unit and a drone, per the same outlet's reporting.
More recently, in February 2026, a Tyrrell County Sheriff's Office school resource officer investigated a suspicious vehicle parked behind Columbia High School, an inquiry that led to a weapon-charge arrest, the Albemarle Observer's police blotter reporting shows. Taken together, the incidents point to a pattern of firearm-related scares reaching the same small campus over roughly two years.
What State Law Says About Gunfire Near Schools
North Carolina law treats willfully discharging a firearm on educational property as a serious offense. Under North Carolina General Statutes § 14-269.2(b), willfully discharging a firearm of any kind on educational property, subject to statutory exceptions, is classified as a Class F felony, according to the North Carolina General Assembly. A 2013 bill proposal described by the UNC Legislative Reporting Service would have imposed criminal penalties for discharging a firearm within 1,000 feet of an elementary or secondary school boundary.
Columbia serves as the county seat of Tyrrell County and is home to the headquarters of the 110,000-acre Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, according to NCpedia, giving the rural town a quiet, wetlands-adjacent identity far removed from the kind of gunfire that struck its high school this week. Public School Review data shows minority enrollment at the county's public high school runs between roughly 68% and 72%, with Black students representing the majority of the student body.
Anyone with information about Thursday's shooting is asked to contact Investigator Phelps with the Tyrrell County Sheriff's Office at 252-796-2251 or 252-473-3444. It remains unclear whether suspect or vehicle details will be released as the investigation continues.
