Two students and two teachers were killed by a 14-year-old student in a shooting at a high school in Georgia on Wednesday, officials said. It’s the first major school shooting of the new academic year, and the deadliest since six people were killed at The Covenant School in Tennessee in March 2023.
The educators killed were Richard Aspinwall and Christina Irimie, both math teachers. Both students who were killed were 14, officials said. One was Mason Schermerhorn, whose mother told a local TV news outlet that her son was autistic. The other student was Christian Angulo.
Nine others—eight students and one teacher—were injured in the shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, Ga., and taken to area hospitals, Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said during a news conference outside of the school Wednesday. In a later update, law enforcement officials said the injured victims were expected to recover.
Hosey said the suspect would be charged with murder and tried as an adult. Police are coordinating charges with the district attorney, Hosey said.
The suspect was previously investigated and interviewed in connection with threats to carry out a school shooting when he was 13, federal authorities said. But there was no probable cause to arrest him at the time, they said.
The 16 schools in the district, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, will be closed through the remainder of the week, school officials said. Grief counselors will be available to community members.
Police were called to the school at approximately 10:20 a.m. for an active shooting, Hosey said. Law enforcement responded “within minutes,” along with two school resource officers assigned to the school, he said.
The suspect immediately surrendered and was taken into custody, Hosey said.
“This is home for me. I was born and raised here. I went to school in this school system. My kids go to this school system,” Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said. “My heart hurts for these kids. My heart hurts for our community.”
Apalachee High School has an enrollment of nearly 1,900 students, and is the state’s second largest public high school, according to state education records. It’s part of the Barrow County school system, which enrolls more than 15,000 students.
The first day of school was Aug. 1. It was students’ second day of classes following the Labor Day holiday.
One 17-year-old student said he was in chemistry class when he heard gunshots, according to ABC News.
“My teacher goes and opens the door to see what’s going on. Another teacher comes running in and tells her to close the door because there’s an active shooter,” the student said.
The community held a vigil Wednesday evening at a local park.
In a statement on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said he has “directed all available state resources to respond” to the shooting.
“This is a day every parent dreads, and Georgians everywhere will hug their children tighter this evening because of this painful event,” Kemp said in a separate post.
President Joe Biden was briefed on the shooting and his administration will assist as necessary, according to the Associated Press. “What should have been a joyous back-to-school season in Winder, Georgia, has now turned into another horrific reminder of how gun violence continues to tear our communities apart,” the president said in a statement.
At a campaign event in North Hampton, N.H., Wednesday afternoon, Vice President Kamala Harris—also the Democratic presidential nominee—called the shooting a “senseless tragedy.”
“It is just outrageous that every day, in our country, 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,” Harris said. “We’ve got to stop it.”
Rather than children being able to focus on schoolwork, she said, “some part of their big, beautiful brains are worried about a shooter busting through the door of the classroom.”
Former President Donald Trump wrote in a statement on the social media platform Truth Social that “our hearts are with the victims and loved ones” of people affected by the shooting.
“These cherished children were taken from us far too soon by a sick and deranged monster,” Trump wrote.
Since the start of 2024, there have been 23 school shootings that resulted in injuries or deaths, according to an Education Week analysis. There have been 205 such shootings since EdWeek began tracking such data in 2018. Prior to Wednesday’s shooting, seven people had been killed in shootings at schools this year.
There were 38 school shootings with injuries or deaths in 2023, a decrease from the 51 reported in 2022, but higher than the yearly totals from 2018 to 2021.
School shootings can have consequences for students’ health and well-being for years. But they can also have wide-reaching impacts on students’ achievement and schools budgets as many affected schools invest in beefed up security measures and lose students.
AASA, The School Superintendents Association, wrote in a statement on X that “schools should always be safe havens for all, and we stand united in support of the community.” In its post, the organization promoted its School Safety and Crisis Planning toolkit, designed to provide a checklist of procedures before, during, and after a crisis for school and district leaders.
News of school shootings can be unsettling for students and educators, whether they were present for the event or not, according to the guide and other school safety experts.
Professional organizations, including the American School Counselor Association, Mayo Clinic, and National Association of School Psychologists, recommend that adults reiterate to children that schools are safe, and review safety procedures so students understand what measures are in place to keep them safe.
School and district leaders can also remind students how to report potential problems or behaviors that make them feel uncomfortable, and ensure staff members are observant of changes in individual students’ behavior following high-profile shooting events that could indicate they’re struggling with feelings of distress or anxiety.
It is also important to remember that, despite an increase in pace and scale in recent decades, mass school shootings are statistically rare events.
Still, a Pew Research Center survey released in April found that a majority of teachers are at least somewhat concerned about a shooting occurring at their school.
