This has been breaking over the last few hours. There was a school shooting in the small town of Winder, Georgia which is located east of Atlanta. The gunman is a young teen and it appears he killed four people.
Four people were killed in the shooting inside Apalachee High School, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Nine others were transported to hospitals with injuries.
Law enforcement sources said earlier approximately 30 people were injured in the shooting. It was unclear how many of those injuries are from gunshot wounds; the information is preliminary and subject to change.
The suspected gunman is believed to be a 14-year-old boy, a law enforcement source told CNN.
There were some early claims that the gunman had been "neutralized" but those were false. The teen gunman is in custody.
There isn't much information on the victims yet. Some reports say there were two students and two teachers killed.
Other schools in the county were put on lockdown. Parents have been reuniting with their kids this afternoon. Understandably, many were terrified by what happened.
Erin Clark was at work Wednesday morning when she got a series of text messages from her son, a senior, who was attending class at Apalachee High School.
“School shooting.”
“I’m scared,” he wrote.
“pls” “i’m not joking,” the flurry of messages said.
“I’m leaving work,” Clark replied. “I love you,” her son, Ethan Haney, 17, wrote back.
Students at Apalachee High have had active shooter drills in their school, but the real thing is quite a bit different.
“They prepare you for these things,” said Isabella, 15. “But in the moment, I started crying. I got nervous.”
Christian Scott, also in 11th grade, said he had left class and was heading to the nurse’s station. “Suddenly,” he said, “I was under lockdown.”
He could hear the gunshots, he said, “before I blocked it out.” Beds were used to barricade the doors inside the nurse’s office. He called his mother, crying.
Those moments were “living hell,” said Christian, 16.
The shooter has been identified as Colt Gray.
Authorities identify Colt Gray, 14, as the suspect in custody for the deadly shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia. They say he is a student at the school, and will be tried as an adult for murder charges. https://t.co/md6Pg8oZjN pic.twitter.com/05yi5QufDM
— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 4, 2024
There are all sorts of photos circulating on X. I'm not including any at this point because none of them have been confirmed yet (that I've seen). The County Sheriff said that the shooter was confronted by a school resource officer. Realizing he could either comply or be shot, he surrendered.
I'm going to add a few more updates below.
Update: Here's the initial response from Kamala Harris.
Kamala Harris called the shooting at a Georgia high school a “senseless tragedy,” saying gun violence is one of the issues at stake this November.
— POLITICO (@politico) September 4, 2024
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she said at a campaign event. https://t.co/zbUszvrI3m pic.twitter.com/P1jXx9EOsc
Another student says she wasn't surprised this kid was the shooter.
A student from Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, described the gunman, 14-year-old Colt Gray, as "quiet" and someone who would often "skip class." She also mentioned that she wasn't surprised.
— Gelo Perez (@TheGeloPerez) September 4, 2024
pic.twitter.com/7CYRZyRQ41
All of the county's schools will be closed for the rest of this week. Here's the response from Gov. Kemp.
A student from Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, described the gunman, 14-year-old Colt Gray, as "quiet" and someone who would often "skip class." She also mentioned that she wasn't surprised.
— Gelo Perez (@TheGeloPerez) September 4, 2024
pic.twitter.com/7CYRZyRQ41
And the reaction from former President Trump:
Statement posted by former President Donald Trump on his Truth Social page regarding the deadly mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia. pic.twitter.com/vGe36lRJAs
— Steve McCarron KOMO (@SteveTVNews) September 4, 2024
And now I'm seeing that the photo circulating on X is a student from a different state. It's the wrong photo.
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