Ten months ago, police visited Bethune Cookman University student Micah Parham in the hospital. They did not think he would live.

  • Shooting victim Micah Parham back at school
  • Parham wants to prevent gun violence
  • Says people need to work with police

Parham was one of three people shot inside a Daytona Beach apartment last September. Parham was shot several times, including in the eye.

His friends were killed.

“When we first went to the hospital to see him, he was our third murder victim. There was no way he was gonna survive those wounds,” said Daytona Beach police chief Mike Chitwood.

On Friday, Chitwood was by Parham's side as he spoke to reporters. The 21-year-old music education major is back at school after a long recovery, and now he wants to use his experience to steer young people away from gun violence.

“There is good and bad in this world. But adding more bad to the good, doesn’t necessarily cancel the bad out,” said Parham.

Parham is particularly concerned about violence amid recent incidents between black people and police. He says now is not the time to take militant action against men and women in blue.

Parham said his experience with the Daytona Beach Police Department after the shooting has changed his point of view. He credits the police with helping him after the shooting, mentally and emotionally.

"It's a time for us to think of the officers that are good in this world, to think of the officers that are risking their lives every day to try to make us safer," Parham said.

Parham also says a more rigorous gun control policy can keep weapons away from people who might do others harm, including York Bodden, the man who shot him and his friends.

“There should definitely be a much stricter, a much stricter process in getting a hold of something that can cause so much damage,” said Parham.

Bodden was caught in South Florida shortly after the murders. He hanged himself in his jail cell.