This story has been updated.
Students at Apalachee High School trickled onto campus Wednesday around 8 a.m. for their first class of the day. The new school year had just started only five weeks prior.
Some were in cooking class or giving presentations when warning signs began flashing on the school’s digital blackboards throughout the building: “hard lockdown.” That’s when gunfire rang out through the hallways.
Law enforcement says 14-year-old student Colt Gray had allegedly entered the school with “an AR-platform style weapon” and began shooting. The incident left four dead and nine other injured before the suspect was taken into custody.
Here’s how the deadly situation unfolded:
Not a drill
It was around 10:20 a.m. Wednesday when several law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and GBI, first rushed to the Barrow County school after reports of an active shooter.
Some parents started receiving chilling text messages from their students. A message popped up on Becky van der Walt’s phone at 10:23 a.m. from her 11th grade son Henry: “I think there’s a school shooting.”
Credit: Courtesy: van der Walt family
Credit: Courtesy: van der Walt family
As the incident unfolded, the closets and classrooms of the high school — which serves around 1,900 students — became desperate hiding places for students and staff to take cover from gunfire.
Some said they thought it was a drill before the reality hit. They huddled in corners, uncertain of who was going to knock on their classroom door.
“Everything was fine. And then all the screens changed to lockdown, and then I heard about five gunshots outside my classroom,” said Apalachee senior Caden Moon.
Apalachee junior Micah Hartsock said: “If I had to, I’d fight and just try my best to get out of there.”
The shooter gave himself up soon after school resource officers encountered him in the school, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said. In a radio interaction, an officer informed a dispatcher that the “suspect is in custody” around 10:23 a.m., according to audio recordings released after the shooting.
In the same call, the officer asked for medics before indicating that at least one person was dead.
The GBI pegged the time of the shooter’s apprehension as 10:26 a.m.
“The shooter was armed,” the sheriff said later in the day when he talked about when law enforcement came face-to-face with Gray. “The shooter quickly realized that if he did not give up, that it would end with an officer involved shooting.
“He gave up, got on the ground and the deputy took him into custody,” Smith said.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Around 10:45 a.m. Apalachee school administrators sent a message to parents that the school “is currently in a hard lockdown after reports of gunfire,” the Athens Banner-Herald reported.
By 10:46 a.m., officers told dispatchers over the radio that: “We’ve got a bunch of parents coming down there,” referring to the school. An officer, in one of the many radio calls released publicly, said of the parents: “I couldn’t stop ‘em.”
Students were ushered to the football field beginning around 10:48 a.m., according to the radio dispatch. Just one minute prior, an officer said over the radio that there were injured students still inside of classrooms.
When parents arrived at the school, they were met by a blockade of traffic along the road. Many abandoned their cars altogether and sprinted toward the football field where students gathered. Some clustered into a prayer circle.
Credit: John Spink/AJC
Credit: John Spink/AJC
The Barrow County Sheriff’s Office confirmed in a news release just before noon that one suspect had been apprehended.
At 2:13 p.m., the GBI reported on social media that one suspect was in custody. Four people were dead and nine others had been taken to local hospitals with injuries. The agency said unconfirmed reports that “the suspect had been neutralized” were inaccurate.
Politicians weigh in
By midday as more information was slowly released, both local and federal lawmakers began issuing statements on the shooting.
Around 12:45 p.m., Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said additional police presence had been deployed to Atlanta Public Schools “out of an abundance of caution.”
Gov. Brian Kemp, who flew to Nevada earlier in the day to speak at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, quickly flew back to Georgia after news of the shooting.
The Republican governor called the incident “everybody’s worst nightmare” in a statement released around 3 p.m.
Credit: John Spink / John.Spink@ajc.com
Credit: John Spink / John.Spink@ajc.com
Around the same time law enforcement prepared to brief the press, President Joe Biden released a statement and said he and first lady Jill Biden were mourning for the victims “whose lives were cut short due to more senseless gun violence.” He called for Congress to pass gun control measures like banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and universal background checks.
“Students across the country are learning how to duck and cover instead of how to read and write,” the president said. “We cannot continue to accept this as normal.”
At a campaign event in New Hampshire, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, gave similar impromptu remarks at the rally and called the shooting “a senseless tragedy.”
Credit: John Spink
Credit: John Spink
‘Pure evil’
Law enforcement held a news conference around 4:40 p.m. on Wednesday.
Although they didn’t offer a motive or answer questions about how the firearm made it into the school, GBI Director Chris Hosey confirmed the previously released details that four individuals were killed and nine others injured. Two of the victims were students and two were teachers, Hosey confirmed, but did not yet release the victims’ identities.
During the news conference, law enforcement first confirmed the shooter’s identity.
“He will be charged with murder, and he will be tried as an adult,” Hosey said.
Smith, the Barrow County sheriff, called the shooting “pure evil.”
“I want to make it very clear that hate will not prevail in this county,” he said during emotional remarks. “I want that to be very clear and known, love will prevail over what happened today.”
Smith said Gray and his family had been interviewed by investigators but they were still undetermined if he had specific targets when he entered the school.
Credit: Courtesy photos
Credit: Courtesy photos
During law enforcement’s second news conference at 9 p.m., the GBI identified the victims as teachers Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie and students Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn.
Aspinwall was a defensive coordinator for the high school football team and math teacher. Irimie was a math teacher who immigrated from Romania.
Christian Angulo was a 14-year-old student known as “very sweet and so caring.” Mason Schermerhorn, also a 14-year-old student, was remembered as “the sweetest most loving soul with the biggest smile.”
Warning signs
Gray faces four counts of felony murder. He is being held in the Gainesville Regional Youth Detention Center and will be tried as an adult, officials said.
Just before 8 p.m., the FBI Atlanta office said Gray was previously investigated in 2023 for threats about a shooting.
At the time, the FBI received several anonymous tips about threats to commit a school shooting made on an online gaming site, the FBI and Jackson County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement late Wednesday.
The threats did not identify a school or when it would happen, but they contained pictures of guns. Investigators tracked the post to Jackson County, where sheriff’s deputies continued the investigation, which led them to a then-13-year-old Gray.
“They conducted an investigation at that time that there was no probable cause for arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action,” Hosey with the GBI said.
The full police report from the incident obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said the teen denied making the threats.
Gray’s first appearance hearing took place the Friday after the shooting in Barrow County Superior Court.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Hundreds of people gathered for a vigil Wednesday night at Jug Tavern Park about 5 miles from the school. The Rev. Geoffrey Murphy from Winder First United Methodist Church prayed for those impacted by the shooting while surrounded by the community.
“Today has been a terrible day of evil, a day where evil has reared its head and brought casualty into our world,” he prayed. “And so let us pray, the prayer that good through comfort and mercy might find its way into the lives of all who have been affected and impacted today.”
On Thursday, Kemp ordered all flags on state buildings be lowered in honor of the victims.
― Staff reporters Caroline Silva, Henri Hollis, Lexi Baker, Michelle Baruchman, Tia Mitchell, Thad Moore, Alexis Stevens, Katherine Landergan, Sara Gregory, Fletcher Page, Alia Pharr, Vanessa McCray and Taylor Croft contributed to this report.
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