Apalachee High School
14-year-old student, Colt Gray, is suspected of gunning down four people at his Georgia high school Wednesday.
The gunfire was reported around 10:20 a.m. at Apalachee High School, less than 50 miles northeast of Atlanta. The teen immediately surrendered after a sheriff’s deputy working as a school resource officer “engaged” him, authorities said.
“The shooter quickly realized that if he did not give up, it would end with an OIS,” Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said at a news conference, using the acronym for an officer-involved shooting.
“He got on the ground and the deputy took him into custody,” Smith said.
Four people were killed after Colt Gray opened fire with what Hosey described as an “AR platform-style weapon.”
Colt Gray was also previously investigated in connection with threats to carry out a school shooting when he was 13 when he was a possible suspect in connection with threats made online in 2023 using photos of guns, the FBI’s Atlanta field office said in a joint statement with the Jackson County, Georgia Sheriff’s Office.
The suspect denied making the threats, the statement says. His father, who was also interviewed, told investigators he had hunting guns in the home but his son did not have unsupervised access to them, according to the statement.
Authorities told local schools to continue monitoring the suspect, the statement says, but there was no probable cause to arrest him at the time. Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said authorities are looking at whether the 2023 threat is connected to Wednesday’s shooting.
The FBI identified the shooting victims as 14-year-old students Christian Angelo and Mason Schermerhorn, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53.
Both Aspinwall and Irimie were math teachers. Richard Aspinwall was also a defensive coordinator for the school’s football team.
Nine other people — eight teachers and one student — were injured in the shooting, the bureau said in a statement. That statement did not identify those victims.
The suspect will be charged with murder and tried as an adult.
A possible motive remained unclear at this time and it isn’t known if the suspect had specific targets when he opened fire. Investigators from the F.B.I., The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Barrow County sheriff’s office were interviewing the teen.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said those who were injured are expected to recover.
The superintendent of Barrow County School District, which Apalachee High School belongs to, said schools would remain closed for the rest of the week “as we fully cooperate to get answers to the many questions we have about what happened here.”
Smith, who said his children attend the school system, described the shooting as “personal.”
“My heart hurts for these kids,” he said. “My heart hurts for this community.”
“Hate will not prevail,” he added. “Love will prevail.”
The Republican and Democratic candidates for president reacted to the shooting, with Donald Trump calling the gunman “sick and deranged” on his social media platform and Kamala Harris telling a New Hampshire rally “we have to end this epidemic of gun violence.”
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said he was “heartbroken” by the shooting.
“This is a day every parent dreads, and Georgians everywhere will hug their children tighter this evening because of this painful event,” he said.
Not sure how many people remember this headline from April 12th, 2022: