People attend a vigil at Jug Tavern Park following a shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, on Wednesday.
Two students and two teachers were killed in the Wednesday shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga. It's the deadliest of 45 school shootings so far this year. Here's the latest:
• Authorities arrest 14-year-old suspect: Colt Gray, a 14-year-old Apalachee High student accused of being the shooter is in custody, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said at a news conference. He will be charged with murder and will be treated as an adult as he proceeds through the criminal justice system, Hosey and Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said. Gray was expected to be booked in jail Wednesday night. Hosey said he was not sure when Gray would make his first court appearance, but said it would be "within a reasonable amount of time."
• Authorities identify four killed: Hosey identified the four killed in Wednesday's shooting as 14-year-old Mason Schermerhorn, 14-year-old Christian Angulo, 39-year-old Richard Aspinwall and 53-year-old Christina Irimie. According to the school's website, the two adults were both math teachers and Aspinwall also served as an assistant football coach.
• Nine others injured: Nine others, eight students and a teacher, were taken to hospitals for injuries, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. All are expected to survive.
• How the shooting unfolded: Authorities reported receiving the first active shooter call at 10:20 a.m. ET. Law enforcement arrived shortly thereafter," Hosey said, "in addition to two school resource officers that were assigned to Apalachee High." The gunfire sent students and faculty desperately scurrying for cover as schools across the county went into lockdown and parents scrambled for information. A school resource deputy confronted the shooter, who got on the ground and was taken into custody, Smith told reporters.
Weapon used in shooting: The weapon used in the shooting was an AR-platform weapon, Hosey said. A law enforcement official earlier told CNN it was an AR-15-style rifle, but did not provide any information on how investigators believe the weapon was obtained or any other details on the weapon and ammunition used. Authorities are investigating how the weapon was brought into the school. We're still trying to clear up much of the timeline from the time that he got here to school today until the incident," Hosey said.
• High school had received phone threat: The high school had received an earlier phone threat, several law enforcement officials told CNN. In that Wednesday morning call, a caller warned there would be shootings at five schools, and that Apalachee would be the first. It is not known who placed the call.
• County schools went into lockdown. The sources said all schools in the Barrow County School System-high school included-were put on lockdown, and police were dispatched-out of an abundance of caution-to all district high schools, though there were no reports of secondary incidents or scenes.
• Official reaction to shooting: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp ordered all available state resources to support the response at the scene, he tweeted. The governor asked "all Georgians to join my family in praying for the safety of those in our classrooms, both in Barrow County and across the state." President Joe Biden promised federal support to state and local officials and urged Congress to pass an assault weapons ban. "We cannot continue to accept this as normal," he said in a statement. General Merrick Garland said the US Department of Justice "stands ready" to support the community in wake of the shooting. "We are still gathering information, but the FBI and ATF are on the scene, working with state, local and federal partners," Garland said during a meeting of the Justice Department's Election Threats Task Force.
• Local schools shutter after shooting: Schools in Barrow County will be closed the rest of the week while the investigation plays out. The Barrow County School System is the 24th largest school district in the state, per the district's website. It serves about 15,340 students, 1,932 of whom are enrolled at Apalachee High School. Winder is some hour northeast of Atlanta and had a population of about 18,338 as of the 2020 census, according to the US Census Bureau.
• Compared with other school shootings: Of this year's 45 school shootings, 32 have been reported on K-12 campuses and 13 on university and college campuses. The shooting is one of 11 school shootings with four or more deaths since 2008, when CNN first started tracking school shootings. The US has suffered at least 385 mass shootings so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which, like CNN defines mass shootings as those in which four or more victims are shot. That's an average of more than 1.5 mass shootings every day.
What we know about the 14-year-old suspect
The suspect, a 14-year-old student at Apalachee, was investigated by law enforcement last year regarding "anonymous tips about online threats to commit a school shooting," according to a joint statement from FBI Atlanta and the Jackson County Sheriff's Office. He denied making the threats online, the agencies said.
The online threats included photographs of guns, the statement said.
"The father stated he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have
unsupervised access to them," the statement said.
The agencies added that "at that time, there was no probable cause for arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action on the local, state, or federal levels."
Investigators spoke with the suspect and also have been in contact with his family, Smith said. Whether the assailant had some connection to his victims was not immediately known, said the sheriff, although officials emphasized that will be part of the investigation.
One student, Lyela Sayarath, said the suspect left the classroom at the beginning of their Algebra 1 class, which started around 9:45 a.m. When the suspect returned near the end of the class, he knocked to get back in. Another student went to open the door, Lyela said, but they noticed the gun and didn't open the door. She said the shooter went to the classroom next door and opened fire.
Hosey said there's no evidence of other schools being targeted, but investigators are pursuing "any leads of any potential associates of the shooter that was involved in this incident." There's also no evidence that any additional shooter was involved, and no evidence of a list of schools being targeted.
"But there is a lot of evidence that is being recovered and evaluated," Hosey added.
As law enforcement investigates not just the shooting but also the motive behind it, Smith warned that getting answers could take "multiple days."
Kemp thanked first responders and other officials who responded to the shooting Wednesday.
This is everybody's worst nightmare and I just want to offer my sincere condolences and our thoughts and prayers to the families that have lost loved ones, for those that are injured and continuing to fight through just a tragic time," Kemp said.
Hosey called the faculty and staff at the high school "heroes" that took action to protect students.
"The heroes that we need to remember is our faculty and staff here at this school," Hosey said. "They acted admirably. They were heroes in the actions that they took. The protocols in this school and this system activated today prevented this from being a much larger tragedy than what we had here today so I want to recognize them."
Richard Aspinwall, Christina Irimie, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo were all victims in the Apalachee High School shooting on September
School community reeling from deaths of 4 victims
Kathrine Maldonado overslept Wednesday and missed school, she said. After she woke up later that morning, her friend texted her saying the school was in a lockdown.
Kathrine's friend said she was okay and then started texting group chats where they found out a friend was killed and at least two more were injured.
"When I found out I started crying, and I just got mad, because why would you shoot innocent people," Kathrine said.
Kathrine added her friend Christian, who was killed in the shooting, was a class clown and described him as a "sweet person."
Other students from Apalachee High School say they are still trying to process today's tragedy of having classmates and teachers being gunned down.
It has been pretty tough because, like, a lot happened in kind of a short period of time," Jayden Finch told CNN. "It was kind of hard to process it."
Another student, 14-year-old Macey Right, said she is worried about returning to school.
I really don't want to go back; I feel like I shouldn't have to go back to school worrying about dying," Right said. "I want to go to school worrying about what my GPA is going to be when my year is over and worrying about my career."
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