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A 14-year-old student opened fire at a Georgia high school and killed four people on Wednesday, authorities said, sending students scrambling for shelter in their classrooms — and eventually to the football stadium — as officers swarmed the campus and parents raced to find out if their children were safe.
The dead were identified as two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Winder, about an hour’s drive from Atlanta. Killed were two other 14-year-olds, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and instructors Richard Aspinwall and Christina Irimie, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said in a nighttime news conference.
At least nine other people — eight students and one teacher — were taken to hospitals with injuries. All were expected to survive, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said.
The words “hard lockdown” appeared on a screen in junior Layla Ferrell's health class and lights began flashing. She and her frightened classmates piled desks and chairs in front of the door to create a barricade, she recalled.
Sophomore Kaylee Abner was in geometry class when she heard the gunshots. She and her classmates ducked behind their teacher’s desk, and then the teacher began flipping the desk in an attempt to barricade the classroom door, Abner said. A classmate beside her was praying, and she held his hand while they all waited for police.
After students poured into the football stadium, Abner saw teachers who had taken off their shirts to help treat gunshot wounds.
Two school resource officers encountered the shooter within minutes after a report of shots fired went out, Hosey said. The suspect, a student at the school, immediately surrendered and was taken into custody. He is being charged as an adult with murder. Authorities said the weapon was an assault-style rifle.
The teen had been interviewed after the FBI received anonymous tips in May 2023 about online threats to commit an unspecified school shooting, the agency said in a statement.
The FBI narrowed the threats down and referred to the case to the sheriff’s department in Jackson County, which is adjacent to Barrow County.
The sheriff’s office interviewed the then-13-year-old and his father, who said there were hunting guns in the house but the teen did not have unsupervised access to them. The teen also denied making any online threats.
The sheriff’s office alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the teen, but there was no probable cause for arrest to additional action, the FBI said.
Hosey said the state Division of Family and Children’s Services also had previous contact with the teen and will investigate whether that has any connection with the shooting.
Authorities were still looking into how the suspect obtained the gun used in the shooting and got it into the school in Barrow County, a rapidly suburbanizing area on the edge of metro Atlanta's ever-expanding sprawl.
At an afternoon news conference, Smith choked up as he began to speak. He said he was born and raised in the community and his kids are in the school system.
“My heart hurts for these kids. My heart hurts for our community,” he said. “But I want to make it very clear that hate will not prevail in this county. I want that to be very clear and known. Love will prevail over what happened today.”
Source: ABC News
