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American Morning

News That Charles Bishop Stole a Plane and Committed Suicide Came as Shock to Some of Those Who Knew Him

Aired January 08, 2002 - 07:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The news that 15-year-old Charles Bishop stole a plane and used it to commit suicide came as quite a shock to some of those who knew him.

Gabriella Terry was Bishop's journalism teacher at East Lake High School. She joins us from there this morning.

Thank you very much for being with us, ma'am. Ms. Terry, can you hear us?

GABRIELLA TERRY, CHARLES BISHOP'S TEACHER: Sure can.

ZAHN: OK, you're on the air. I just wanted to let you know that.

TERRY: OK.

ZAHN: Describe to us your reaction when you heard that Charles Bishop slammed a stolen airplane into a bank tower.

TERRY: I was very shocked. I found it hard to believe. I liked Charles Bishop very much, as well as his classmates also liked him very much. He was a gentle, kind young man. I've just moved to the Florida area and he hasn't been in Florida that long himself and he gave me a Christmas present. And I was very touched by that.

So needless to say, when I heard this, my immediate response was to grab some papers that I brought home over the weekend to grade, to see if he had, you know, written anything down. And of course he didn't.

I was just, I was just stunned.

ZAHN: I know that a number of his classmates have very much described him as a loner, although I know the school has said he was a straight A student. Did you at any point ever see a student that was sending mixed signals to you?

TERRY: No. I teach journalism, as you know, and the big part of my journalism class is that the students learn to interact with each other. They do a lot of group work. They do a lot of public speaking. They'll write speeches or they'll write papers. They'll do interviews. There's a lot of interaction going on. And my class, I don't tolerate any sort of prejudices at all in my class and it's a good group of kids. So, no, I mean everyone got along fine. He seemed happy. He would talk for the other students. He would talk to me. No, not at all.

ZAHN: Let me ask you this. I know you held a number of class discussions on September 11 and what it meant to this country. Did at any time Charles Bishop express support for Osama bin Laden and the terrorists?

TERRY: Never. The contrary. He was very patriotic as well as everyone in the class. He presented his paper orally to the class and there were, you know, his was just like everyone else's, very patriotic. He was saddened by the loss of life, as well as angered.

ZAHN: I know the school's wrestling with this issue of what you think went wrong. Have you or any of the guidance counselors come to any sort of conclusion about what led this kid astray?

TERRY: People aren't really coming to any conclusion. We're just trying to deal with this on a day to day basis within ourselves. Me personally, my big issue is the fact that he has a mother and grandmother that lost a son and grandson and they're hearing mixed signals from the media, negative things about Charles. And I never saw that side of him.

It saddens me. I was absent from school the Friday before Christmas holidays and there's a part of me that is just troubled by that because of the fact that I felt like well maybe if I'd been there he would have talked to me and this whole thing would have been prevented. You never know.

ZAHN: Well, I know it's tough for you to talk about.

Gabriella Terry, thank you very much for your time.

TERRY: You're welcome.

ZAHN: I know you're competing with the school day that's now under way. We apologize for any confusion that might have caused you to have that audio blasting in the background as the two of us spoke.

Thank you for your time this morning.

TERRY: Oh, you're welcome.

ZAHN: Best of luck to you and your students, as well, as you try to come to terms with what happened.

TERRY: Thank you. Yes.

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