A 14-year-old student opened fire at a Georgia high school and killed four people on Wednesday, authorities said, sending students scrambling for shelter in their classrooms \u2014 and eventually to the football stadium \u2014 as officers swarmed the campus and parents raced to find out if their children were safe.\u00a0
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The dead were identified as two students and two teachers, and at least nine other people were taken to hospitals with injuries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The suspect, a student at Apalachee High School in Winder, about an hour\u2019s drive from Atlanta, was taken into custody, authorities said, and was being charged as an adult with murder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat you see behind us is an evil thing,\u201d Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said at a brief news conference outside the school. He declined to give details about the suspect. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said four people were dead and at least nine injured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The school shooting was just the latest<\/strong> among dozens across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut, Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas. The classroom killings have set off fervent debates about gun control and frayed the nerves of parents whose children are growing up accustomed to active shooter drills in classrooms. But they have done little to move the needle on national gun laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jacob King, a sophomore football player, said he had dozed off in his world history class after a morning practice when he heard about 10 gunshots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n King said he didn\u2019t believe the shooting was real until he heard an officer yelling at someone to put down their gun. King said when his class was led out, he saw officers shielding what appeared to be an injured student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before Wednesday\u2019s shooting, there had been 29 mass killings in the U.S. so far this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. At least 127 people have died in those killings, which are defined as incidents in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer \u2014 the same definition used by the FBI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year ended with 217 deaths from 42 mass killings in the U.S., making 2023 one of the deadliest years on record in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ashley Enoh was at home Wednesday morning when she got a text from her brother, who\u2019s a senior at Apalachee High:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJust so you know, I love you,\u201d he texted her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sophomore Kaylee Abner was in geometry class when she heard gunshots. She and her classmates ducked behind their teacher\u2019s desk, and then the teacher began flipping the desk in an attempt to barricade the classroom door, Abner said. A classmate beside her was praying and she held his hand while the students waited for police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Layla Ferrell, a junior, was in a health class when the words \u201chard lockdown\u201d appeared on a screen in the classroom and lights began flashing. Ferrell said she and her frightened classmates piled desks and chairs in front of the door to create a barricade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Helicopter video from WSB-TV<\/strong> showed dozens of law enforcement and emergency vehicles surrounding the school in Barrow County, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Erin Clark, 42, received a text from her son Ethan, a senior at the high school, that there was an active shooter, she rushed from her job at the Amazon warehouse to the school. The two texted \u201cI love you,\u201d and Clark said she prayed for her son as she drove to the high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the main road blocked to the school, Clark parked and ran with other parents. Parents were then directed to the football field. Amid the chaos, Clark found Ethan sitting on the bleachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clark said her son was writing an essay in class when he first heard the gunshots. Her son then worked with his classmates to barricade the door and hide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m so proud of him for doing that,\u201d she said. \u201cHe was so brave.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Students had only started the school year a little over a month ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt makes me scared to send him back,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what I\u2019m going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Traffic going to the school was backed up for more than a mile as parents tried to get to their children there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s just outrageous that every day, in our country, in the United States of America, that parents have to send their children to school worried about whether or not their child will come home alive,\u201d Vice President Kamala Harris said during a campaign stop in New Hampshire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a message posted to social media, former President Donald Trump said: \u201cThese cherished children were taken from us far too soon by a sick and deranged monster.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said in a statement: \u201cThis is a day every parent dreads, and Georgians everywhere will hug their children tighter this evening because of this painful event.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The FBI\u2019s Atlanta office said its agents were at the school \u201ccoordinating with and supporting local law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Apalachee High School has about 1,900 students, according to records from Georgia education officials. It became Barrow County\u2019s second largest public high school when it opened in 2000, according to the Barrow County School System. It\u2019s named after the Apalachee River on the southern edge of Barrow County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The shooting had reverberations in Atlanta, where patrols of schools in that city were beefed up, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Winder, Abner said that when she goes home Wednesday night, she hopes to avoid thinking about those terrifying moments in her geometry class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll probably not think about it, even though it happened,\u201d she said. \u201cJust think happy thoughts, don\u2019t think about it anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sophomore Shantal Sanvee, who was in a classroom near the gunshots, said \u201cI saw, like, a whole lot of blood. And it was just, it was just horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t think I want to be here for like a long time now,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As an officer led the students towards the football stadium, freshman Michelle Moncada was in tears. People who she knew had been shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was just really, really nervous,\u201d Moncada said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The stadium was filled with tear-stricken students wondering whether their friends were okay. She saw one of her friends on the floor. A bullet had grazed him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t feel real,\u201d Moncada said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A 14-year-old student opened fire at a Georgia high school and killed four people on Wednesday, authorities said, sending students scrambling for shelter in their classrooms \u2014 and eventually to the football stadium \u2014 as officers swarmed the campus and parents raced to find out if their children were safe.\u00a0 The dead were identified as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":43793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[461,12],"tags":[5310,6202,262,10387,6369,9784,9214,287,9331,11503,6083,10391,10505,5241,423,11700,746,6159,5321,5247,6225,5302,8484,11522,9807,1647,11491,12634,9390,5328,11111,11525,10197,11398,3114,9515,10342,12329,8235,6220,10802,5331,5382,7968,421,3805,9110,6736,8810,7389,11259,9253,5349,6059,6047,6790,6741,5355,5594,9262,214,6348,6747,2802,5704,8033,36,594],"class_list":["post-43791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-world-news","tag-amazon","tag-atlanta","tag-bullet","tag-campaign","tag-chaos","tag-charged","tag-child","tag-children","tag-city","tag-connecticut","tag-dead","tag-declined","tag-die","tag-died","tag-education","tag-evil","tag-feel","tag-fire","tag-florida","tag-football","tag-friends","tag-geometry","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-high-school","tag-gun","tag-gun-control","tag-harris","tag-health","tag-helicopter","tag-hospitals","tag-injured","tag-injuries","tag-investigation","tag-kamala","tag-kamala-harris","tag-killed","tag-law","tag-laws","tag-lockdown","tag-love","tag-mass-killings","tag-mayor","tag-murder","tag-nine","tag-police","tag-president","tag-river","tag-school","tag-schools","tag-shooter","tag-shot","tag-sick","tag-social-media","tag-student","tag-students","tag-teacher","tag-teachers","tag-texas","tag-traffic","tag-united-states","tag-university","tag-us","tag-uvalde","tag-vice-president","tag-vice-president-kamala-harris","tag-video","tag-world","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43791"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43796,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43791\/revisions\/43796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}