Four people were killed and nine more were hospitalized with injuries after a shooting Wednesday morning at a high school in northern Georgia, authorities have confirmed.Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said at an afternoon news conference that two of the victims who were killed were students and two were teachers at Apalachee High School, located in Winder, Georgia.The suspect was identified as 14-year-old Colt Gray, a student at the school, Hosey said. He was taken into custody alive. The alleged shooter will be charged with murder and “handled” as an adult, Hosey added.
The victims were identified as Mason Schermerhorn, 14, Christian Angulo, 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53. Aspinwall and Irimie were both math teachers, according to the school’s website.
All nine of the hospitalized victims had been shot “in some capacity,” Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said. All nine were expected to survive, Smith said.
Law enforcement officials arrive to give a press conference outside of Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, on Sept. 4, 2024, after a shooting took place in which four people were killed, including two students and two teachers. A 14-year-old suspect was arrested. CHRISTIAN MONTERROSA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
The suspect surrendered when he was confronted by responding law enforcement officers, Smith said. Smith disclosed that the alleged gunman was speaking with authorities and that those conversations were “helping with our investigation.” He was being held at the Barrow County Detention Center.
The alleged shooter used an AR platform-style gun and there was no evidence any other shooters were involved, according to Hosey.
“We’re still trying to clarify a lot of the timeline from the time that he got here to school today to the time the incident took place,” Hosey said in a late-night news conference.
FBI Atlanta said on social media Wednesday night that county authorities had interviewed the suspect last year about online threats to commit a school shooting.
According to FBI Atlanta, the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center found that the posts came from Georgia, and “the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office referred the information to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office for action.”
The sheriff’s office interviewed the then-13-year-old boy and his father. The boy said he was not responsible for the threats. The father said he had hunting guns in the house, but that his son did not have “unsupervised access to them,” FBI Atlanta said.
“Jackson County alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the subject, FBI Atlanta said. “At that time, there was no probable cause for arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action on the local, state, or federal levels.”
Two gunshot victims were taken to Northeast Georgia Medical Center Barrow and one gunshot victim was taken to Northeast Georgia Medical Center Gainesville. All three had injuries that were not considered life-threatening. A spokesperson for Grady Health System, which operates Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, previously said staff had received one gunshot wound patient from the high school.
In addition to the wounded, multiple patients came into the hospital system with anxiety symptoms and others experiencing panic attacks, a spokesperson confirmed to CBS News.
“This is a very, very fluid investigation,” said Smith. “This is going to take multiple days for us to get answers as to what happened and why this happened.”
Administrators had earlier placed students and faculty on lockdown as reports emerged online of a possible active shooter at the school in Winder, Georgia, which is about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta. Officers were dispatched to the site at approximately 10:23 a.m. EDT, according to the sheriff. The premises were cleared within an hour, the school said, and students started being released to their families.
According to Smith, law enforcement was notified of the threat thanks to a new security system that had been installed about a week earlier. Smith noted there were three school resources officers on campus at the time of the shooting.
Georgia school shooting locationApalachee High School
Marques Coleman, 14, a student at the school told CBS affiliate WANF he was inside the classroom when the shooting happened and something in his head told him to look to his left. “I see a kid with a, he had like a big gun,” said Coleman, who said the student just started shooting. “I got up, I started running, he started shooting like, like 10 times. He shot at least at least 10 times.”
Coleman said he dived behind the desk and his teacher got in front of him, “My teacher started barricading the door with desks,” he said. After he got up Coleman told WANF he saw, “one of my classmates on the ground bleeding so bad,” another girl shot in the leg and a friend shot in the stomach.
“I just thank God that I wasn’t the one that got hit, you know, like in the midst of all of it happening. I was just thanking God because you know, he had his hands around me and stuff like that because I could have been the one that got here because I was right there. He could have easily got me. But God had his hands around me,” said Coleman.
There was a heavy police presence seen on the school’s property Wednesday morning, WANF reported at around 11 a.m. Aerial footage from the news station showed dozens of ambulances, officers and a medical helicopter gathered in the parking lot and on the green outside of the building. At that time, at least one person had been transferred into the helicopter on a stretcher and students evacuated to the school’s stadium, where buses were due to pick them up, according to WANF.
Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation were also called to the scene. FBI Atlanta said they were “coordinating with and supporting local law enforcement” in a statement shared just before 12 p.m. on social media.
A medevac helicopter lands at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, Sept. 4, 2024, in a screen capture from video footage.WANF-TV
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp addressed the situation in a social media statement released around the same time, saying his office had moved state resources to help with the response to what he described as an “incident at Apalachee High School.”
“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,” Kemp said. “We will continue to work with local, state, and federal partners as we gather information and further respond to this situation.”
President Biden and his administration were aware of the shooting, the White House Press Office said in a statement.
“President Biden has been briefed by his Homeland Security Advisor, Liz Sherwood-Randall, on the tragic shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia and his administration will continue coordinating with federal, state, and local officials as we receive more information,” the statement said.
Some 1,900 students are enrolled at Apalachee High School. Classes begin each day at 8:15 a.m., according to the district calendar district calendar. Barrow County schools will be closed for the remainder of the week, the superintendent said.
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, has released CCTV footage and images of a suspect linked to a shooting incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington.
The released video, shared shortly before the President spoke to the press, reportedly shows the suspect entering the ballroom of the Washington Hilton and bypassing a security metal detector before armed security personnel moved in to intercept him.
Trump described the individual as a “would-be assassin,” alleging that he was heavily armed and managed to breach a key security checkpoint.
According to BBC reporting, the President said the suspect forced his way past screening procedures while carrying multiple weapons.
Photographs also released by the President show a shirtless man lying face down in a lobby area with his hands restrained behind his back, believed to be the suspect involved.
Authorities confirmed that the suspect is now in custody. Trump also stated that a law enforcement officer was shot during the incident but survived due to wearing a bulletproof vest.
The shooting occurred on Saturday night during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, an annual event attended by journalists, government officials, and other dignitaries.
The incident caused panic at the venue, leading to the evacuation of guests and officials.
Investigations are ongoing to determine the motive behind the attack and how the security breach occurred.
Iran has confirmed a two-week ceasefire announced by U.S. President Donald Trump, the Tasnim news agency, which is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported early on Wednesday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz would be possible for two weeks in coordination with Iran’s armed forces “and with due consideration of technical limitations.”
Trump had made reopening the waterway a condition for the ceasefire and had threatened to target Iran’s energy sector and infrastructure, including bridges, if Tehran failed to comply, setting a deadline of 0000 GMT.
The Strait of Hormuz, crucial to global oil and gas trade, has been largely closed since the United States and Israel launched large-scale attacks on Iran on Feb. 28.
According to a senior U.S. official, Israel will also adhere to what Trump described as a “double sided CEASEFIRE.”
Pakistan, which has mediated between Tehran and Washington, said that an immediate ceasefire between Iran and the US had taken effect.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif wrote on X that the Islamic Republic of Iran and the U.S., along with their allies, had agreed to an “immediate ceasefire everywhere,” including in Lebanon.
“I warmly welcome the sagacious gesture and extend deepest gratitude to the leadership of both the countries and invite their delegations to Islamabad on Friday … to further negotiate for a conclusive agreement to settle all disputes,” Sharif said.
Trump earlier said Sharif had asked him to refrain from carrying out the threatened attacks.
The U.S. has received a 10-point proposal from Iran and believed it offered a “workable basis” for negotiations, Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social.
According to The New York Times, the plan calls for lifting all sanctions imposed on Iran. (dpa/NAN)
An earthquake that struck Afghanistan overnight killed eight members of the same family in Kabul province, the health ministry said on Saturday.
The 5.8-magnitude quake struck at 8.42 pm (1612 GMT) on Friday at a depth of 186 kilometres (115 miles) at the epicentre in northeastern Badakhshan province, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
Shaking was felt in multiple parts of the country, including the capital Kabul, according to AFP journalists.
“In the Gosfand Dara area of Kabul Province, eight members of a family died as a result of the earthquake,” Health Ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman said in a message to media.
He added that a child aged around two years old was the only survivor from the household and the country’s disaster management agency said the boy had been injured in the tremor.
Afghanistan is frequently jolted by earthquakes, particularly along the Hindu Kush mountain range near where the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates meet.
In August, a shallow magnitude 6 earthquake wiped out mountainside villages and killed more than 2,200 people in eastern Afghanistan, making it the deadliest tremor in the country’s recent history.
