Parents in Charlotte, North Carolina, are expressing dismay after a man who threatened five Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools was released from jail days before the start of the new school year.
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In a series of threatening emails last year, Drew Owens, 31, said that he would carry out mass shootings at Garinger High School, Ardrey Kell High School, West Charlotte High School, Community House Middle School, and Hawk Ridge Elementary School. Owens said he would “shoot up” the schools in late February or early March and made clear that he intended to kill staff and students at each location.
In a letter mailed to staff at Garinger High School, Owens also reportedly claimed that a female student had obtained two shotguns and an AR-15 from the “dark web,” and that she would “put all the Black people in their place” and “wants to kill all the blacks.”
Owens was charged with five felony counts of threatening mass violence on school property. He had previously been arrested five times in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area, according to WSOC-TV.
At the time of his arrest, parents were outraged that they weren’t notified by the school district until after WSOC-TV broke the story.
A judge initially set Owens’ bond at $10,000, enraging parents, but in February 2025, prosecutors filed an emergency motion and another judge raised it to $200,000 secured.
During that bond hearing, prosecutors noted that Owens was also wanted for failing to appear at a prior court date related to an incident at the Trump White House in 2019.
While the specifics of the White House incident remain unclear, the infraction was used to argue against his release because it highlighted his pattern of threatening behavior.
Owens had been harassing his parents since 2021, according to a court affidavit obtained by WSOC-TV. Their neighbors had also more recently been subjected to the harassment, WSOC-TV reported.
His father, identified as Darryl Owens, is the ROTC instructor at West Charlotte High School, one of the schools targeted.
Darryl Owens reportedly believed his son was “still upset with him because he kicked Drew out of the house back in 2021 for continued drug and alcohol abuse.”
After that, Drew Owens began “harassing the rest of the family, neighbors, and other family friends … threatening to kill and/or shoot up different people and locations,” according to the affidavit.
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When the harassment first began, Darryl Owens told police “he was able to get a restraining order against Drew and Drew was arrested for violating the order but has since dismissed the order,” the affidavit said.
Owens allegedly would sit outside their homes trying to lure his father outside.
“Lately, Drew has begun to intensify his behavior by sitting out front of the neighbors’ homes and presumably watching the neighbors and went to Mr. Owen’s job [West Charlotte High School] and began taking pictures of his car, sending them to Mr. Owens to try to lure him outside,” the documents stated.
“I am constantly in fear for my life,” a neighbor told WSOC in February 2025, after requesting anonymity due to safety concerns.
Darryl Owens had also previously attempted to have him involuntarily committed, but was unsuccessful.
After the February 2025 bond hearing, a relieved parent told WSOC that their “number one worry” had been “if he gets out, when will he get out, and will we know when he gets out?”
Despite his history of harassing behavior, a judge in May 2026 reduced Owens’ bond to $75,000 secured, which he was able to pay.
Friday night, he posted bond and by Saturday morning, he was out of jail.
“In this situation it’s confusing because he had a $200,000 bond,” one terrified parent told WSOC. “He’s clearly a public safety threat, so what took the threat level down?”
There is apparently no answer to that question in the court paperwork.
“It’s really unnerving for some of us,” said the parent. “We live in the area where he knows people and again it’s not positive, it’s scary.”
“He’s out and that’s it, and the rest of us have to deal with it and teachers have to go to school on Tuesday and deal with it,” the parent said.
Owens is reportedly on electronic monitoring and been ordered to stay away from the schools.
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