Suspect arrested after opening fire inside Georgia school killing four
Police say they arrested a 14-year-old student accused of opening fire on his classmates and teachers at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia.
ATHENS, Ga. − Authorities in Georgia were working Thursday to solve the tragic mystery of why and how a 14-year-old boy previously linked to violent threats opened fire in his high school, killing two teachers and two students and plunging the Atlanta suburb of Winder into anguish and mourning.
Killed Wednesday were Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and math teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53. Eight other students and one teacher were wounded.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said the gunman, armed with an “an AR-platform style weapon” began shooting around 10:20 a.m. Smith said the shooter, identified as Colt Gray, was quickly confronted by deputies assigned to the school and that the suspect immediately surrendered. Gray was speaking with investigators, who declined to say whether they had determined what motivated the rampage.
“Pure evil did what happened today,” Smith said at a briefing late Wednesday.
The FBI said it received tips about online threats last year involving then-13-year-old Colt Gray. The tips were forwarded to authorities in neighboring Jackson County who determined there was insufficient evidence to make an arrest.
How the shooting unfolded: Complete timeline of events
Developments:
∎ Hundreds of community members gathered in downtown Winder for a vigil Wednesday night. Many held candles, bowing their heads down and holding each other as they prayed for the lives lost in the tragic shooting.
∎ Gray will be charged and tried as an adult, said Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI).
∎ GBI said there is no evidence that anyone else was involved in the shooting or that other schools might be targeted.
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Classmate Lyela Sayarath told the Associated Press the teen turned the gun on students in a hallway at the school when classmates refused to open the door for him to return to his algebra classroom. Sayarath, who described Gray as a quiet student who recently transferred, said she was watching Gray through a window in the door.
She said some students went to open the locked door, but then backed away.
“I’m guessing they saw something,” Sayarath said. Then she heard the shots “about 10 or 15 of them at once, back-to-back.”
FBI received tips about online threats: Tips involved suspected Georgia school shooter
The FBI received tips about online threats last year involving then-13-year-old Gray, the suspect in Wednesday’s shooting at Apalachee High School, the bureau’s ‘s Atlanta office said Wednesday. In May of 2023, the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center got anonymous tips about online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location, federal agents said in a social media post. The threats, which contained images of guns, were traced to Jackson County, Georgia, and the FBI notified the Jackson County Sheriff’s office.
Authorities interviewed Gray and his father, who said that he had hunting guns in the house but Gray did not have access to them. Colt Gray also denied making the online threats. There was no probable cause at the time for an arrest or additional law enforcement action, the post said. Jackson County passed on information to local schools, but Gray was a student at Apalachee High School in Barrow County when the shooting took place. Read more here.
More than 20 schools across the nation have been impacted by gun violence since the start of 2024. The school shooting at Apalachee High School was the 23rd time this year this year a school shooting has resulted in injuries or deaths, according to data compiled by Education Week, a news organization that covers K-12 education. Education Week is just one of multiple organizations that compiles data about gun violence in schools, but they only track incidents that fulfill a certain criteria. The 22 school shootings prior to Wednesday’s in Georgia have resulted in seven deaths and 29 injuries, according to Education Week’s tally.
There have been more than 200 school shootings since Education Week began to track school shootings in 2018.
− Amaris Encinas
Contributing: Thao Nguyen