Georgia school shooting marks 45th school shooting in the USA this year September 06, 2024 | Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 10,136 |
Quote
Only days after the deadliest school shooting in Georgia’s history, the 14-year-old suspect made his first court appearance on Friday on four charges of felony murder.
In a community now awash in grief and shock, questions have swirled about what could have motivated the teenager to open fire at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., on Wednesday morning.
The youth, who was a student at the school, is accused of killing two students and two teachers. On Thursday, his father was also arrested and charged with second-degree murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting. He appeared in court on Friday, shortly after his son. Both father and son will remain jailed without bail.
Officials say that a “complex investigation” is ongoing, and that they may file additional charges.
Here is what we know.
Shortly after 10 a.m. Wednesday, and barely a month into the new school year, gunfire erupted on the campus of Apalachee High School, which is roughly 50 miles from downtown Atlanta.
The shooter used a black AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle, according to arrest warrants. The four killings happened within minutes.
Law enforcement officials said that the suspect surrendered to school resource officers and was taken into custody.
At the sound of gunshots, the school went into lockdown. The locked classroom doors, as well as a newly installed alarm system, may have helped to prevent further bloodshed, officials said.
Some students said that they had huddled quietly in their classrooms for more than an hour, and many had left their phones behind when they eventually evacuated, making it hard for them to connect with anxious family members. Traffic snarled around the school as parents scrambled to find their children.
The authorities said that the students who died were Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and that the educators were Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie.
Mason was described by friends of his family as a lighthearted teenager who liked reading, telling jokes and playing video games. Christian’s sister Lisette Angulo described her brother as “a very good kid” who was “sweet and so caring.”
Ms. Irimie was a math teacher. She came to the United States from Romania as a member of a dance troupe nearly three decades ago, according to her friends and family members, and was devoted to her students at Apalachee.
Mr. Aspinwall was a math teacher, too, and he also served as the school football team’s defensive coordinator. The players called him “Coach A” and described him as supportive and uplifting. He had two young daughters.
At least nine other people were injured in the shooting. Law enforcement officials said that those who had been taken to the hospital were expected to make a full recovery.
The teenager’s hearing on Friday, which happened in a courtroom in Winder, lasted less than 10 minutes. He appeared alongside a public defender, Zane Harmon, who told the judge that there was no request for bond.
The police have found evidence that the youth was interested in mass shootings, particularly the 2018 massacre at a high school in Parkland, Fla., according to two law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation.
Relatives suggested that he had a troubled home life. Charlie Polhamus, the teenager’s maternal grandfather, said he believed his grandson was responsible for what happened but also cast some of the blame on the tumult in the teenager’s life with his father, who had split from Mr. Polhamus’s daughter. “My grandson did what he did because of the environment that he lived in,” Mr. Polhamus said.
In May of last year, F.B.I. officials were alerted to some disturbing messages on Discord, a social media platform: Someone in a chat group had threatened to possibly “shoot up a middle school.”
A report from the Jackson County sheriff’s office, obtained by The New York Times, said that an email associated with the Discord user who had made the threat belonged to the suspect. The report detailed how investigators looked into it but were unable to definitively link the threats to the boy, then 13, who denied that he had been the author.
At the time, his father, Colin Gray, told an investigator that he and his wife were no longer together and that they had been evicted from their home. The father also told investigators that he had hunting rifles in the house, but that his son did not have “unfettered” access to them, according to a transcript of the May 2023 interview obtained by The Times.
Records from the eviction, in 2022, show that Mr. Gray owned several weapons, including an AR-15-style rifle.
On Thursday, Mr. Gray, 54, was arrested and charged with two counts of second-degree murder in connection with the attack, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
He was also charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children.
“His charges are directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon,” Chris Hosey, the bureau director, said at a news conference.
When Mr. Gray spoke to investigators last year during the Discord investigation, he said that he was “going to be mad as hell” if his son had made the threats about a school shooting, according to the interview transcript. “Then all the guns will go away,” he added.
Re: Georgia school shooting marks 45th school shooting in the USA this year September 07, 2024 | Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 2,454 |
Re: Georgia school shooting marks 45th school shooting in the USA this year September 07, 2024 | Registered: 12 years ago Posts: 3,643 |
Re: Georgia school shooting marks 45th school shooting in the USA this year September 07, 2024 | Registered: 11 years ago Posts: 2,153 |
Re: Georgia school shooting marks 45th school shooting in the USA this year September 07, 2024 | Registered: 12 years ago Posts: 3,643 |
Quote
cfdavep
"JD Vance said school shootings are a fact of life, suggesting we just need to get used to them"
I think the Rethugs want kids out of school and into the workforce for the crappy jobs at 12, poor girls knocked up at 13-14 or if they want education then it will be the Christian private school kind for those who can afford it.
Re: Georgia school shooting marks 45th school shooting in the USA this year September 09, 2024 | Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 3,963 |
Re: Georgia school shooting marks 45th school shooting in the USA this year September 09, 2024 | Registered: 8 years ago Posts: 312 |
Re: Georgia school shooting marks 45th school shooting in the USA this year September 10, 2024 | Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 10,136 |
Quote
cfdavep
JD Vance said school shootings are a fact of life, suggesting we just need to get used to them.
Re: Georgia school shooting marks 45th school shooting in the USA this year September 12, 2024 | Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 3,963 |
Re: Georgia school shooting marks 45th school shooting in the USA this year September 13, 2024 | Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 10,136 |
Re: Georgia school shooting marks 45th school shooting in the USA this year September 18, 2024 | Registered: 16 years ago Posts: 1,998 |
Quote
twocents
I am amazed though that these dumbass teachers, rather than being proactive and buying a gun, learning how and WHEN to shoot, are merely taught and believe to cower in classrooms like sitting ducks. they are the products of the anti gun mentality they are spoon fed through their kawledge years.. when these things happen.. good lord, armed people are going to run into the face of danger to save their cringing assholes. Hell, Israel teaches their educators on guns, and how to use them. these teachers are literally saying they are too stupid to learn how and when to use a gun.
Re: Georgia school shooting marks 45th school shooting in the USA this year September 19, 2024 | Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 10,136 |
Re: Georgia school shooting marks 45th school shooting in the USA this year September 22, 2024 | Registered: 12 years ago Posts: 3,643 |