Two students and two teachers were killed at a Georgia high school on Wednesday in a mass shooting authorities say was committed by a 14-year-old male student at the school. Source: The Guardian.
At least nine others were taken to the hospital following the incident at Apalachee high school in Winder, Georgia.
Officials said at an afternoon press conference that the suspect, a 14-year-old student at the school, was alive and in custody, and surrendered quickly as officers, including two school resources officers, entered the campus and confronted him.
Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia bureau of investigation, said the suspect would be charged as an adult with four counts of murder.
In an initial statement, the local county sheriff’s office said authorities were dispatched to Apalachee High School in Winder, when officers from multiple law enforcement agencies responded to a reported shooting that morning, OSV News reported.
The school is located nearly 80kms from Atlanta. A spokesperson for that city’s Grady Health System told CNN the hospital was treating at least one gunshot victim from the school, who was transported to them by helicopter.
In a statement, US President Joe Biden said he and his wife, Jill, are “mourning the deaths of those whose lives were cut short due to more senseless gun violence and thinking of all of the survivors whose lives are forever changed”.
“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,” Mr Biden said.
“Students across the country are learning how to duck and cover instead of how to read and write. We cannot continue to accept this as normal.”
Last year, the Catholic bishops of the Atlanta province signed a joint statement June 27, 2023, urging “decisive action” by federal and state officials to implement meaningful legislation addressing the “plague of gun violence” nationwide and locally.
The bishops said the “ready accessibility of firearms presents an immediate threat to the wellbeing of children” and called on lawmakers to prevent them “from falling into the hands of those who would carry out violent acts against children in schools, against their families or against themselves”.
FULL STORY
Apalachee high school shooting: student charged with murder after four people killed in Georgia (The Guardian)
Multiple dead after mass shooting at Georgia high school (OSV News)
