Authorities have disseminated an image of a youth believed to be responsible for the deaths of four individuals in the US state of Georgia.
In the incident at Apalachee High School in Winder, located 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, two educators and two pupils lost their lives on Wednesday.
Colt Gray, aged 14, turned himself in after being “confronted by school resource officers inside the premises,” according to Barrow County police.
He faces allegations of carrying out the fatal shootings with a military-style rifle just outside his algebra classroom.
One of his classmates, Lyela Sayarath, reported hearing between 10 to 15 gunshots.
Kassidy Reed, 17, sought counseling along with her peers on Thursday and expressed that she had difficulties sleeping.
Post-incident, she recounted witnessing blood on the floor and what appeared to be an assembled firearm next to a victim.
“The first thought upon waking up is like, someone lost their coach, someone lost their father, someone lost their best friend,” she remarked.
Students and staff assemble alongside a football field at the school. Pic: Reuters
Nine individuals, including a teacher and eight students, sustained injuries in the shooting. Reports from NBC News, a partner of Sky News, indicate they remained hospitalized on Thursday.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith stated that all are projected to survive.
The sheriff’s office has indicated that neither body camera footage nor audio recordings will be made available to “maintain the integrity of the inquiry.”
Read more on this story:
What we know about Colt Gray
School shooting victims named
Following a lead from the FBI, Gray and his father were questioned last year concerning online threats related to a school shooting made on the gaming platform Discord.
They denied having made the statements, according to investigators.
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School shooting suspect previously investigated by FBI
The inquiry was closed after investigators could not link Gray to the Discord account, and no justification was found to confiscate the firearms owned by the family, based on police documentation released by the sheriff’s office.
Information regarding the Discord account—which displayed profile details in Russian and a digital evidence trail showing access from various locations in Georgia and Buffalo, New York—was described as “discrepant,” according to one investigator.
“This case was thoroughly examined, and the boy was only 13 at the time, and there was insufficient evidence to support any claims,” stated Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum.
“We absolutely did not overlook any aspect of this. We executed all procedures possible given the information available at the time.”
Gray’s father informed authorities that he had hunting firearms secured in a safe at home and that his son did not have access to them.
Gray faces charges as an adult for the murders of students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both aged 14, as well as teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, as reported by Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
He is scheduled to make his initial court appearance on Friday.
Classes at the school were suspended on Thursday; however, some individuals went to the school bearing flowers.
