Police visited home of school shooter (14) last year over threats
Four die after boy opens fire in US
Investigators in the US were piecing together how a teenager obtained the semi-automatic rifle he used to carry out a mass shooting at his school and whether there were any additional warning signs after authorities visited his home a year ago.
Colt Gray (14) opened fire on Wednesday at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, killing two students and two teachers and wounding nine.
Gray was interviewed by law enforcement last year after he made online threats about carrying out a school shooting.
His father, who also was interviewed, told officials he had hunting guns in the house, but his son did not have access to them.
The shooter’s ability to obtain the semi-automatic rifle, any signs warning he would actually carry out a shooting and his motive are focuses for investigators digging into the US’s first campus mass shooting since the start of the school year.
An investigator from the Jackson County sheriff’s department interviewed the Grays last year, but did not find grounds or evidence of an imminent threat to seek the needed court order to confiscate the family’s gun.
“This case was worked, and at the time the boy was 13, and it wasn’t enough to substantiate,” Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said. “If we get a judge’s order or we charge somebody, we take firearms for safekeeping.”
Gray was taken into custody shortly after the shooting. He will be charged and tried as an adult.
Gray was being held without bond at Gainesville Regional Youth Detention Centre.
His arraignment is set for today before a Georgia Superior Court judge in Barrow County by video camera.
Officials identified those killed as two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and two teachers, Richard Aspinwall (39) and Christina Irimie (53).
One teacher and eight students wounded in the attack remained in hospital.
The shooting revived both the national debate in the US about gun control and the outpouring of grief that follows in a country where such attacks occur with some regularity.
People in Winder, a city of 18,000 people 80km northeast of Atlanta, gathered on Wednesday night in a park for a prayer vigil for the victims.
Mason was an upbeat teenager who liked visiting Disney World, where his family was going on vacation soon, friends of his family told the New York Times. His mother told an Atlanta news channel that he was autistic.
Friends of Christian said he loved to make people laugh.
“He was a very good kid and very sweet and so caring,” wrote Lisette Angulo, who identified herself as the victim’s oldest sister on a GoFundMe page she created to cover his funeral costs. “He was so loved by many.”
Along with teaching mathematics, Mr Aspinwall was the football team’s defensive co-ordinator. He described himself as a “husband to a beautiful wife and dad to two amazing girls” on his X account, where he posted often about football and his family.
Ms Irimie also taught mathematics at the school. A friend told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she emigrated from Romania in the 1990s and was active in the expatriate community in Georgia, teaching traditional dances to children in her spare time.
The shooting was the first planned attack at a school this autumn..
The US has experienced hundreds of shootings inside schools and colleges in the past two decades, with the deadliest resulting in over 30 deaths at Virginia Tech in 2007.