Four students were killed on Wednesday when a 14 year old suspected shooter stormed the school and started shooting sporadically.
CNN reported that authorities said the first report of an active shooter came in at 10:20 a.m. Before Law enforcement arrived shortly afterwards, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said, in addition to two school resource officers who were assigned to Apalachee High.
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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.
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. The school’s website shows the two adults were both math teachers and Aspinwall was also an assistant football coach.
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Nine other people – eight students and one teacher – were taken to hospitals with injuries, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. All of those wounded are expected to recover, CNN reported.
The Governor of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp directed all available state resources to assist at the scene, he said in a statement on social media. The governor urged “all Georgians to join my family in praying for the safety of those in our classrooms, both in Barrow County and across the state.”
The US President Joe Biden also offered federal support to state and local officials and called on 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 after 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 at a meeting of the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force.
The suspected shooter Colt Gray, a 14-year-old Apalachee High student, is in custody, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said at a news conference.
He will be charged with murder and will be handled as an adult as he moves 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.”
