Law enforcement had prior warning about suspect in fatal Georgia high school shooting
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The Atlanta office of the FBI has released new details about the 14-year-old boy accused of killing two students and two teachers and injuring nine others at Apalachee High School on Wednesday in Winder, Ga.
In a post on X, the FBI said in May 2023 it received “several anonymous tips about online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location and time,” and that the threats contained images of guns.
The agency says the sheriff’s office identified a suspect, a 13-year-old male, and interviewed him and his father. “The father stated he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them. The subject denied making the threats online,” the post said.
The FBI said the sheriff’s office alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the subject, but that there was no probable cause for arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action. The agency confirmed that the then-13-year-old is the same teenager who was taken into custody after Wednesday's shooting.
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Investigators described the gun used in the shooting as an "AR-style platform weapon." Authorities said it's too early to determine the timeline of the shooting or other details about what happened.
During a Wednesday afternoon news briefing, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said the teen would be charged with murder and tried as an adult.
Hosey said the sheriff’s office received calls of an active shooter at the school at around 10:20 a.m. Officers arrived at the scene “within minutes,” in addition to two school resource officers assigned to the high school.
The school resource officers “immediately encountered the subject" within minutes of the initial call, Hosey told reporters.
“Once they encountered the subject, the subject immediately surrendered to these officers and he was taken into custody,” he said.
"Hate will not prevail," sheriff says
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told reporters that his “heart hurts” for the children and the community following Wednesday’s deadly shooting.
"I went to school in this school system. My kids go to this school system. I’m proud of this school system. My heart hurts for these kids, my heart hurts for our community, but I want to make it very clear that hate will not prevail in this county," Smith said.
"I want that to be very clear and known. Love will prevail over what happened today, I assure you of that,” he added.
Smith said the agency isn't releasing any information about injuries, calling the process "a very, very fluid investigation." He said he's unaware of any connections between the suspect and the victims.
"We don't know of any targets at this point," Smith said, adding that authorities are looking into how the alleged shooter obtained the weapon and how he got it into the school.
Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta told NPR that it "received one gunshot wound victim from Apalachee High School in Barrow County."
Images from the scene showed police officers leading students away from the school and to the nearby football field.
"We're in the process of reunifying our students with their parents," Smith said. "Obviously, that's chaotic." "This is gonna take multiple days for us to get answers as to what happened and why this happened."
Apalachee student Stephanie Folgar told Georgia Public Broadcasting that when she heard four pops, she hid in the bathroom. She realized that it wasn’t a drill when a teacher told her nothing was scheduled for today.
“Some people were crying," Folgar said. "They said they felt like something was about to happen to them. We heard some screaming from other students from the other hallway and we just had to stay there until the cops came and told us to get out.”
Dallas LeDuff, the county schools superintendent, announced that schools in Barrow County will be closed for the remainder of the week. LeDuff added that grief counseling will be available for students, faculty and staff.
"You think it's not going to happen to us, and then it does"
Tina Ronghi, a grandmother of students who attend Apalachee High, told Georgia Public Broadcasting: "I mean, it's devastating when you hear it happen to anybody, but then you think it's not going to happen to us, and then it does."
President Biden has been briefed on the shooting, saying in a statement that it was "another horrific reminder of how gun violence continues to tear our communities apart."
During Wednesday's midday briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Biden and his administration “will continue coordinating with federal state and local officials."
"I have directed all available state resources to respond to the incident at Apalachee High School and urge all Georgians to join my family in praying for the safety of those in our classrooms, both in Barrow County and across the state," Gov. Brian Kemp said on X.
"We will continue to work with local, state, and federal partners as we gather information and further respond to this situation," the governor added.
Apalachee High School started its academic year on Aug. 1, according to its online calendar. The school's campus sits on the outskirts of Winder, Ga., near a rural highway that runs between Athens and Atlanta. This is the school's 25th year, according to a recent message to parents.
The White House calls on Congress "to do something," Jean-Pierre said, after extending condolences to those affected by the shooting.
"We need universal background checks," she said. "We need to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require safe storage of firearms, invest in prevention programs and pass a national red flag law."
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