Courtlin Arrington was a 17-year-old senior at Huffman High School in Birmingham, Alabama, when she was fatally shot in a classroom on March 7, 2018. Described as bright and energetic and planning to study nursing in college, Courtlin’s death occurred as students were leaving school that afternoon.

Initial reports treated the shooting as an accident, but surveillance footage later showed a fellow student, 17-year-old Michael Jerome Barber, had brought a pistol to school. Prosecutors said the weapon discharged while he was showing it, striking Courtlin and wounding Barber in the leg. The school’s metal detectors were reportedly not in use that day.

Barber was arrested and charged as an adult with manslaughter and illegal possession of a firearm. A Jefferson County jury in June 2019 acquitted him of reckless manslaughter but found him guilty of criminally negligent homicide; he was sentenced in August 2019 to 12 months in jail and a fine. Courtlin’s family remembered her as caring and determined.

Did anyone at Huffman High or in the community see or hear anything that afternoon that could help clarify how the gun came to be in the classroom?