A 14-year-old student carried out the Apalachee High School shooting. He opened fire at the Georgia high school on Wednesday morning, September 4, taking the lives of four people, students and teachers alike, before surrendering to school resource officers.
Authorities have said the court will charge him with murder for his actions. Students, barely a month into the new school year at Apalachee High in Winder, Georgia, are traumatized by the incident. They initially thought the lockdown after the first shots rang out was a drill, but that assumption was quickly put to bed.
The kids said they heard gunfire and quickly barricaded themselves in classrooms before later fleeing to the football field to reunite with their anxious parents.
The Apalachee High School Shooter Will Be Tried as an Adult
The Apalachee High School shooting was a tragic incident perpetrated by a 14-year-old boy. But authorities say that he will be tried as an adult. The Georgia High School shooter’s name is Colt Gray, and officials have identified him as a student at Apalachee High School.
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The police say that the boy encountered officers within minutes of starting his rampage and immediately surrendered. Many lives were saved because the teachers had a form of identification equipped with a panic button, an innovation they had only had for about a week.
The panic button alerted emergency responders and is probably one of the main reasons there were fewer casualties. As it stands, authorities have not been able to establish if Gray deliberately targeted those he shot. However, he will be charged with murder and was set to be booked on Wednesday night, according to an official.
Who Are the Victims of the Apalachee High School Shooting?
Two students and two teachers lost their lives in the Apalachee High School shooting. The two teachers are Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, while the students are 14-year-olds Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo.
Another nine victims, including eight students and one teacher, got away with their lives. However, they sustained injuries following the shooting, and emergency responders have taken them to hospitals, the GBI has said. Authorities say they expect all of them to survive their injuries.
Other students at the school lived thanks to their quick thinking and the timely lockdown warning, but in a way, they are also victims because of the trauma they will now have to deal with.
The Apalachee High School Shooter Has Been on Police Radar for Over a Year
On the same day the Apalachee High School shooting happened, federal investigators revealed shocking details about the suspected shooter, Colt Gray. Authorities claim local law enforcement officials who linked him to threats made online of a school shooting interviewed the suspect more than a year ago.
They were led to Gray, who was 13 at the time, after the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center received several anonymous tips in May 2023 reporting threats posted on an online gaming site.
The FBI claims the tips warned of a school shooting at “an unidentified location and time” and included photographs of guns. However, all they did was sit him down to talk.
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What Weapon Was Used in the Georgia High School Shooting
The gun the suspect used in the Apalachee high school shooting was an “AR-platform-style weapon,” said Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, when he gave updates at a news conference. The police are still looking into how the suspect gained access to the gun, Hosey said.
Mass shooters have commonly used the AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle in the past, and it is one of the most ubiquitous weapons in the United States.
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