Students and teachers at Apalachee High School in Georgia, where a teenager committed a fatal shooting on Wednesday, are being praised for the courage they showed in the face of unimaginable circumstances.
Meanwhile, more and more information is emerging about the 14-year-old shooter who allegedly put them in those circumstances.
Four people were killed and nine others were wounded in the attack at the high school in Winder, Georgia, outside Atlanta. The gunman carried out the attack with an AR-style rifle.
During the shooting, Apalachee students tried to stop the attacker several times and were the first to try to help the injured, CNN reported.
A 14-year-old student tried to stop the shooter when he saw the attacker’s weapon, CNN reported.
Student Lyela Sayarath told CNN the gunman tried to enter a freshman algebra classroom but was stopped. The gunman then went into the classroom next door and opened fire.
Another student managed to close a classroom door, preventing the shooter from entering – and was shot in the process.
Richard Aspinwall, a 39-year-old math teacher and one of the four people killed in Wednesday’s shooting, is believed to have died while trying to protect his students during the shooting.
Aspinwall reportedly heard banging on lockers near the classroom. Students told ABC News that he left the classroom to protect them.
“My teacher, Coach Aspinwall, opened the door and ran outside to see what was going on,” Stephanie Reyna, 17, told ABC News.
Students say they heard the sound of gunshots and then saw Aspinwall lying in the classroom. “He was just laying there, in the doorway, just laying there. He was trying to crawl back toward us.
“We think he was just trying to get us,” the student told ABC.
Sophomore Kaylee Abner, who was in her math class at the time of the shooting, told The Associated Press that her teacher helped barricade the classroom she was in as shots rang out inside the building. Later, as students fled into the school’s football stadium, Abner saw that several teachers had removed their shirts to stop the bloody gunshot wounds.
A police officer stationed at the school eventually confronted the shooter, Colt Gray, who subsequently surrendered and was jailed on four counts of murder.
The shooter, who will be tried as an adult, will also face additional charges related to the injuries.
According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), the alleged shooter’s father, 54-year-old Colin Gray, has also been charged in connection with the shooting.
Colin Gray is facing multiple charges, including second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children. He is accused of giving his son multiple weapons that were used in the mass shooting, even after he knew his child “posed a threat to himself and others.”
“His charges are directly tied to his son’s actions and allowing him to possess a gun,” GBI Director Chris Hosey told reporters during a news conference on Thursday.
At the same time, the suspected shooter’s home life has come under scrutiny. The teenage suspect reportedly lived alone with his father and frequently spent time shooting guns and hunting animals, the Associated Press reported.
The teen and his father had been living together alone after being evicted the year before, leading to the teen’s parents’ divorce.
An aunt of the suspected shooter told The Washington Post that the teen struggled with his mental health and “begged for months” for help before allegedly carrying out Wednesday’s attack.
He was “begging for help from everyone around him,” Annie Brown, the teen’s aunt, told the Post. “The adults around him were abandoning him.”
Brown had been sending text messages to a family member about the teen’s mental health issues and his access to firearms, the Post reported.
According to reports, relatives of the teen had met with school counselors to arrange therapy.
Wednesday’s deadly school shooting has renewed public debate about gun safety laws, while leaving parents struggling to talk to their children about trauma and school shootings, which are disproportionately common in the U.S.
