Teen in custody after 4 killed in Georgia high school shooting
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Follow topic:
ATLANTA - A 14-year-old student killed two fellow students and two teachers and wounded nine others in a shooting at a Georgia high school on Sept 4, jolting the United States with the first mass campus shooting since the start of the school year.
The suspect, who had been interviewed by law enforcement in 2023 over online threats about committing a school shooting, was taken into custody shortly after the shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, investigators said.
He was identified as Colt Gray and will be charged and tried as an adult, Mr Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, told a press conference.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said the gunman, armed with an “AR platform-style weapon”, a semi-automatic rifle, was quickly confronted by deputies assigned to the school and that the suspect immediately got on the ground and surrendered.
Once under arrest, the suspect spoke to investigators, who believe he was acting alone, but they declined to say if they knew what motivated him.
Officials identified those killed as 14-year-old students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo and teachers Richard Aspenwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53.
All nine of those hospitalised were expected to recover, Mr Smith told reporters.
“Pure evil did what happened today,” he said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) later issued a statement revealing that it had investigated online threats to commit a school shooting in 2023 and local law enforcement interviewed a 13-year-old subject and his father in nearby Jackson County.
The statement did not identify the teen, but Georgia officials said the statement was in connection to the subject in custody.
“The father stated he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them. The subject denied making the threats online. Jackson County alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the subject,” the FBI said, adding that there was no probable cause to make an arrest.
The shooting disrupted a sunny and cool late summer morning in Winder, the seat of the Barrow County government located about 80km from Atlanta.
Local TV stations broadcast images of parents lining up in cars on a road outside Apalachee High School, hoping to be reunited with their children.
The school, which had an enrolment of nearly 1,900 students in 2023, began classes on Aug 1.
ABC News quoted a witness, student Sergio Caldera, as saying he was in chemistry class when he heard gunshots.
Sergio, 17, told ABC his teacher opened the door and another teacher ran in to tell her to shut the door “because there’s an active shooter”.
As students and teachers huddled in the classroom, someone pounded on the door and shouted several times for it to be opened.
When the knocking stopped, Sergio heard more gunshots and screams. He said his class later evacuated to the school’s football field.
The shooting revived both the national debate about gun control and the outpouring of grief that follows in a county where such outbursts occur with some regularity.
People in Winder, a city of 18,000, gathered in a park for a prayer vigil on the night of Sept 4.
Some leaned on each other or bowed their heads in prayer, while others lit candles to honour the dead.
“We are all hurting. Because when something affects one of us, it affects us all,” said Mr Power Evans, a city councilman who addressed the gathering.
“I know that here tonight, all of us are going to come together. We’re going to love on one another... We’re all family. We’re all neighbours.”
Law enforcement officers working at the scene of a shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, on Sept 4.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Biden calls for gun safety legislation
The White House said in a statement that President Joe Biden had been briefed on the shooting “and his administration will continue coordinating with federal, state and local officials as we receive more information”.
“Jill and I are mourning the deaths of those whose lives were cut short due to more senseless gun violence and thinking of all of the survivors whose lives are forever changed,” Mr Biden said in a statement, calling on Republicans to work with Democrats to pass “common-sense gun safety legislation”.
Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party nominee for president, called the shooting a “senseless tragedy”.
“We’ve got to stop it. We have to end this epidemic of gun violence,” Ms Harris said at the start of a campaign event in New Hampshire.
Former president Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, wrote on social media: “Our hearts are with the victims and loved ones of those affected by the tragic event in Winder, Georgia. These cherished children were taken from us far too soon by a sick and deranged monster.”
Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp, when asked at a press conference what can be done to prevent shootings, said: “Today is not the day for politics or policy. Today is the day for an investigation, to mourn these precious Georgians that we have lost.”
The shooting was the first “planned attack” at a school this autumn, said Mr David Riedman, who runs the K-12 School Shooting Database.
Students were released at midday, after the situation was brought under control.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Apalachee students had returned to school in August; many other students in the US are returning this week.
The US has had hundreds of shootings inside schools and colleges in the past two decades, with the deadliest resulting in over 30 deaths at Virginia Tech in 2007.
The carnage has intensified the pitched debate over gun laws and the US Constitution’s Second Amendment, which enshrines the right “to keep and bear arms”. REUTERS, BLOOMBERG
