The 14-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting two students and two teachers with an assault rifle at a Georgia high school on Wednesday had been questioned by investigators earlier. His father insisted the teen did not have unsupervised access to the family’s guns.
The town of Winder is in deep shock and mourning over the shooting at Apalachee High School, about 50 miles from Atlanta, as the victims are known.
The teen has been charged as an adult in the deaths of students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, said Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Related: Kamala Harris responds to Georgia school shooting: ‘We have to stop this’
At least nine other people — eight students and one teacher at the school — were taken to the hospital with injuries and all were expected to survive, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said.
More than a year ago, tips about online posts threatening a school shooting led Georgia police to question Colt Gray, then 13, but investigators didn’t have enough evidence to make an arrest. On Wednesday, Gray was charged with opening fire at his school and was scheduled to be transferred to a regional juvenile detention center on Thursday after he surrendered to authorities when confronted about the shooting.
Armed with an assault rifle, the teen allegedly pointed the weapon at students in the school hallway when classmates refused to open the locked door to their classroom. He left the door and later tried to get back in during an algebra class, said a classmate, Lyela Sayarath.
According to the FBI, Gray and his family were questioned last year.
“The father stated that he had hunting rifles in his home, but the suspect did not have unsupervised access to them. The suspect denied making the threats online. Jackson County alerted local schools to continue monitoring the suspect,” the FBI said in a statement.
Hours after the shooting, state and federal law enforcement raided the Grays’ home. Investigators told Fox 5 in Atlanta that they were looking for weapons, as well as digital devices that could provide clues to the timeline of what happened.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have separately condemned the killings. The US president called on Congress to pass tougher new gun laws, in a statement from the White House, and the vice president and Democratic Party candidate for president in the November election called it a “senseless tragedy” and called for “an end to this epidemic of gun violence.”
Harris added: “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Students at the school described their fears as they heard gunshots and the sound of screaming outside their classrooms. Alexsandra Romero told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she initially thought it was a drill when another student burst into her classroom and yelled for everyone to take cover.
“I remember my hands were shaking. I felt bad because everyone was crying, everyone was trying to find their brothers and sisters,” she said.
It was the 385th mass shooting in the U.S. this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. It was the eighth school shooting of the new school year, which has just begun, ABC’s Good Morning America reported on Thursday.
Biden said in a statement Wednesday that the shooting was “yet another horrific reminder of how gun violence continues to tear our communities apart,” and called on Republicans in Congress to work with Democrats to pass “sound gun safety legislation,” including a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines and universal background checks for gun buyers.
“These measures will not bring back the victims who tragically lost their lives today, but they will help prevent more tragic gun violence from happening and tearing more families apart,” the president said.
Fundraising pages have been set up to help the families of the four victims cover funeral expenses. Lisette Angulo, who identified herself as Christian Angulo’s eldest sister, described her 14-year-old brother on the site as “a very good boy and very sweet and so caring. He was so loved by so many … We are truly devastated.”
The other student who was killed, Schermerhorn, was described by family friends who spoke to The New York Times as a lighthearted teenager who enjoyed “reading, telling jokes, playing video games and visiting Walt Disney World.”
Both teachers who were killed, Aspinwall and Irimie, taught math. Aspinwall also coached football, having been hired by the school as the defensive coordinator for the 2023 season.
People in Winder, a town of just 18,000, gathered in a park later Wednesday evening for a prayer vigil. Some leaned on each other or bowed their heads in prayer, while others lit candles to honor the dead.
“We’re all hurting. Because when something affects one of us, it affects all of us,” said Power Evans, a city council member who addressed the gathering. “I know we’re all going to come together tonight. We’re going to love each other. … We’re all family. We’re all neighbors.”
In the US, hundreds of school and college shootings have taken place over the past two decades.
The Associated Press contributed to the reporting
