Four are dead and at least nine are injured after a Wednesday mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia’s Barrow County Schools, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Two teachers and two students were killed, and the injured have been taken to local hospitals, said law enforcement in a press briefing Wednesday afternoon.
A suspect is in custody and alive, according to GBI Director Chris Hosey. The shooter was identified as 14-year-old Apalachee student Colt Gray, who Hosey said surrendered immediately and is being charged with murder. Gray will be "handled as an adult," Hosey said.
First responders received word of an active shooter Wednesday morning and were on the scene within a few minutes, according to a press briefing held by local law enforcement.
"This is a very, very fluid investigation. It's very early," said Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith at an earlier press conference Wednesday morning. "This is going to take us multiple days to get answers as to what happened and why this happened."
The Biden administration also released a statement following the shooting. "What should have been a joyous back-to-school season in Winder, Georgia, has now turned into another horrific reminder of how gun violence continues to tear our communities apart," said President Joe Biden. "Students across the country are learning how to duck and cover instead of how to read and write. We cannot continue to accept this as normal."
School shootings have reached record highs for each of the past three consecutive years, with 349 school shootings recorded by the K-12 School Shooting Database in 2023. This year, there have already been 218 shootings recorded by the database, which tracks any time a gun is fired or brandished with intent, or when a bullet hits school property, regardless of the number of victims, time, day or reason behind the incident.
While school shootings have reached new highs in recent years, active shooter incidents and mass shootings were a small portion of the overall gun activity on K-12 campuses in 2023.
Mass shootings have remained relatively low into 2024 as well. In January, a mass shooting at Perry High School in Iowa resulted in two deaths and additional injuries.
Despite school shootings pacing lower than the prior year in the first half of 2024, a Wednesday blog post from K-12 School Shooting Database founder David Riedman said 2024 is on pace to exceed the record number of shootings in 2023.
