Teen charged after bomb threats made against his high school

(WINDER, Ga.) — Two students and two teachers were killed in a shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, on Wednesday morning, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, were the two teachers killed in the incident, officials said at a Wednesday night news briefing. Students Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and Christian Angulo, also 14, were also killed, officials confirmed.

Another nine victims — eight students and one teacher — were taken to hospitals with injuries following the shooting, the GBI said earlier in the day.

The suspect — 14-year-old Colt Gray, a student at Apalachee High School — was encountered by officers within minutes, and he immediately surrendered and was taken into custody, the GBI said. He will be charged with murder and he will be tried as an adult, the GBI said. Gray was set to be booked on Wednesday night, according to an official.

It’s not clear if any of the victims were targeted, authorities said.

Chris Hosey, the director of the GBI, said at Wednesday night’s briefing that an AR-platform-style weapon was used in the incident.

Emergency responders were alerted to the shooting due to teachers having a form of identification that had a type of panic button on it, a law enforcement member said at the news briefing. He added that they had only had those kinds of IDs for “about a week.”

Earlier Wednesday night, the FBI confirmed on X that the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, on an alert from the organization, interviewed Wednesday’s alleged shooting suspect in 2023.

“In May 2023, the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center received several anonymous tips about online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location and time,” the FBI post read. “Within 24 hours, the FBI determined the online post originated in Georgia and the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office referred the information to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office for action.”

The agency added that the sheriff’s office “located a possible subject, a 13-year-old male, and interviewed him and his father. The father stated he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them. The subject denied making the threats online,” the FBI said.

The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office “alerted” schools in the area regarding “monitoring” of the teen, and there was no probable cause for arrest, the FBI said in its post.

“To confirm, the subject referred to as the 13 year old is the same subject in custody related to today’s shootings at Apalachee High School,” the FBI added in a subsequent post.

Apalachee High School is in Barrow County, not far from Jackson County.

Hosey said Wednesday night that law enforcement is aware of previous contact that Family and Children Services had with the family earlier and they are investigating.

He also praised the teachers at the high school as heroes, who prevented a much larger tragedy.

Students and parents speak out

Senior Sergio Caldera, 17, said he was in chemistry class when he heard gunshots.

“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,” Caldera told ABC News.

He said his teacher locked the door and the students ran to the back of the room. Caldera said they heard screams from outside as they “huddled up.”

At some point, Caldera said someone pounded on his classroom door and shouted “open up!” multiple times. When the knocking stopped, Caldera said he heard more gunshots and screams.

He said his class later evacuated to the football field.

Kyson Stancion said he was in class when he heard gunshots and “heard police scream, telling somebody, ‘There’s a shooting going on, get down, get back in the classroom.'”

“I was scared because I’ve never been in a school shooting,” he told ABC News.

“Everybody was crying. My teacher tried to keep everybody safe,” he added.

Dad Jonathan Mills said he experienced an “emotional roller coaster” as he and his wife rushed to the school and waited to get a hold of their son, Jayden.

It was “exhilarating” and “overwhelming” to reach Jayden, a junior, and learn he was OK, Mills told ABC News.

Mills, a police officer, said, “Growing up in this area, you don’t expect things like that to happen.”

“I have three children. All three of them go to this cluster of schools, and you never think about that,” he said.

Winder is about 45 miles outside of Atlanta.

Barrow County Schools will be closed through the end of the week, the superintendent said.

Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith called the shooting “pure evil.”

Among the victims, Northeast Georgia Health System said three people with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds were taken to its hospitals. Five people with symptoms related to anxiety and panic attacks also came to its hospitals, it said.

Leaders react

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were briefed on the shooting, according to the White House.

“Jill and I 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,” Biden said in a statement. “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.”

The president highlighted his work to combat gun violence, including signing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law and launching the first White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. But he stressed that more must be done.

“After decades of inaction, Republicans in Congress must finally say ‘enough is enough’ and work with Democrats to pass common-sense gun safety legislation,” Biden said. “We must ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines once again, require safe storage of firearms, enact universal background checks, and end immunity for gun manufacturers. These measures will not bring those who were tragically killed today back, but it will help prevent more tragic gun violence from ripping more families apart.”

Harris said at a campaign event in New Hampshire, “Our hearts are with all the students, the teachers and their families.”

“This is just a senseless tragedy on top of so many senseless tragedies,” she said. “We have to end this epidemic of gun violence.”

“This is one of the many issues that’s at stake in this election,” Harris said.

“Let us finally pass an assault weapons ban and universal background checks and red flag laws,” she said. “It is a false choice to say you are either in favor of the Second Amendment, or you want to take everyone’s guns away. I am in favor of the Second Amendment, and I know we need reasonable gun safety laws in our country.”

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said he is “heartbroken.”

“This is a day every parent dreads, and Georgians everywhere will hug their children tighter this evening because of this painful event,” he said in a statement. “We continue to work closely with local, state, and federal partners to make any and all resources available to help this community on this incredibly difficult day and in the days to come.”

Kemp canceled a planned speech in front of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas Wednesday night to fly back to Georgia in the wake of the shooting, a source confirmed to ABC News.

In Atlanta, authorities will “bolster patrols” around schools on Wednesday “out of an abundance of caution,” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said in a statement.

“My prayers are with the high school students, staff and families affected by the senseless act of violence,” Dickens said.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WINDER, Ga.) — As students hid behind desks and doors during the latest deadly school shooting in the United States, they pulled out their cell phones.

It was just before 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, that Becky Van Der Walt received a text message from her son that no parent wants to receive.

“I think there’s a school shooting,” Van Der Walt’s son, Henry, a junior at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, wrote, according to text messages shared with ABC News. “We heard gunshots and the police shouting … We’re all in hard lockdown.”

Around eight minutes later, Henry sent another text to his mom with three simple words, “I love you.”

Around the same time Wednesday, Erin Clark, also a parent of an Apalachee High School student, saw a concerning text message pop up on her phone from her son, Ethan.

“School shooting rn .. i’m scared,” Ethan, the high school student, wrote to his mom. “pls i’m not joking.”

When Clark responded that she was leaving work, Ethan, too, responded with just three words: ” I love you.”

Sonya Turner was home for less than an hour Wednesday after dropping off her 15-year-old daughter at Apalachee High School when she too got a worrisome text.

“There’s a real lockdown,” Turner’s daughter Abby, a sophomore, wrote to her mom from biology class. “idk how to explain it … i heard shots but i don’t anymore.”

While Abby and her fellow classmates were texting their parents Wednesday morning, not knowing what would happen, a 14-year-old student had allegedly opened fire at Apalachee High, killing four people and injuring nine.

The 14-year-old student accused of opening fire at the school has been charged with four counts of felony murder, with additional charges expected, Georgia Bureau of Investigation officials said Thursday. A motive is not known.

Two teachers and two students were killed in the shooting: math teacher and football coach Richard Aspinwall, 39; math teacher Cristina Irimie, 53; and students Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and Christian Angulo, 14, according to officials.

Eight students and one teacher were injured, officials said, but all are expected to survive.

Becky Van Der Walt told ABC News it was “terrifying” to receive a text message about a school shooting from her son, with whom she reunited later in the day.

Ethan Clark also survived the shooting, as did Turner’s two daughters, Abby and Isabella, a 14-year-old freshman at Apalachee High.

Turner told ABC News that as soon as texts from her daughters about gunshots came in just before 10:30 a.m., she called her husband to go to the school, telling him, “It’s real. Go. Go. Go.'”

For the next hour, Turner, also the mom of a 9-year-old son, said she stayed glued to her phone, keeping her daughters calm, making sure they had safe places to hide and praying with them.

“Where are you hiding,” Turner asks in one text message, with Abby responding, “I’m behind a long desk.”

“Is there an additional closet or anything you can get in,” Turner asks Abby in a later message.

“No I can’t move … I’m not aloud to mo[v]e,” Abby replies, leading Turner to tell her, “Ok. Pray …,” while also texting prayers.

In another message, Turner asks her daughters to simply keep communicating with her so she knows they’re alive, writing to them, “Keep talking to me.”

Isabella, just a few weeks into her first year of high school, texted her mom, “I love you. Mommy im scared.”
Grief counselors from Columbine, Parkland, Sandy Hook describe what happens after a school shooting

Turner said over the course of the morning, she received text messages not only from her daughters inside the school, but from fellow parents who were also communicating with their kids and helping each other as they intermittently lost communication.

“[A friend] has two kids [at Apalachee High School], and she couldn’t get one of them on the phone, and he turned out to be in the classroom of the first teacher that was pronounced dead,” Turner said. “She’s texting and texting and couldn’t get him and couldn’t get him, and that’s because he was trying to save his teacher.”

In another instance, Turner said she temporarily lost communication with Isabella.

“That was a total freak-out moment but her phone had gotten taken, the whole class, they took their phones,” Turner said, adding. “But when they ushered them all out onto the football field, she got to a friend who was able to text me … so I knew she was safe.”

Turner, who is recovering from abdominal surgery, said she ended up walking over one mile from her home to the high school, where, after several hours, she was able to reunite with her daughters.

“Abby just keeps hearing the gunshots, and their question now is, how do we go back to school,” Turner said. “Izzy’s stuff is all in her classroom right where she left it, and she’s like, ‘Mommy, I don’t want to go get it. I don’t want to go back into that room.’’

ABC News’ Caroline Guthrie contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Jimmy Carter will turn 100 years old on Oct. 1.

The former president of the United States will reach the milestone birthday, about 20 months since entering home hospice care in February 2023.

Carter’s late wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter, died on Nov. 19, 2023, two days after the Carter family announced publicly that their matriarch had started hospice care as well. She was later honored at a memorial service held at Emory University’s Glenn Memorial Church in Atlanta, where Jimmy Carter made a rare appearance.

“Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” former President Jimmy Carter said in a statement at the time. “She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”

Rosalynn Carter had been diagnosed with dementia in her final year of life.

The Carters were, and Jimmy Carter remains the head of a large extended family. Get to know their beloved children below.

Meet Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter’s family:

Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter, who were married for 77 years, had four children: three sons — John William, James Earl III, Donnel Jeffrey — and one daughter, Amy Lynn.

In addition to their four children, the Carters were grandparents of 12 (one deceased) and great-grandparents to 14 children, according to the Jimmy Carter Library.

The Carters grew up together as neighbors and schoolmates in Plains, Georgia and went on to become the longest-married couple in presidential history. They married on July 7, 1946.

Jimmy Carter told ABC News in 2021 that the key to their long and happy marriage included taking the time to both “share as much as we possibly can” and giving each other permission to pursue separate interests.

“We’ve survived this long together because first of all, we give each other plenty of space to do our own thing,” he said at the time.

“We’re always looking to do things or find things we can do together, like fly fishing and bird watching and just going out to the pond,” Rosalynn Carter also added.

Learn more about the Carters’ children:

Jack Carter

Jack Carter was born in Virginia in July 1947, nearly a year after his parents’ marriage.

He owns an investment company and lives in Las Vegas.

The eldest Carter son was previously a lawyer and a businessman and in 2016, followed his father’s footsteps into politics. He ran as a Democratic candidate for the Senate in Nevada but lost to incumbent Republican Sen. John Ensign.

He was previously married to Juliette “Judy” Langford and they share two children – son Jason James and daughter Sarah Rosemary, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, which is run by the University of Georgia. Jack Carter has been married to Elizabeth Brasfield since 1992.

Jason Carter delivered the eulogy at the memorial service of his late grandmother Rosalynn Carter.

Chip Carter

James Earl Carter III, named after his father, was born in Hawaii in April 1950.

The second Carter son also grew up in his father’s hometown of Plains but in a 2008 interview with the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, he said his nickname Chip was given to him while he was still in Honolulu.

“‘Chip’ is Hawaiian for ‘baby’ and my blue armband when I was born had ‘Chip Carter’ written on it, which meant ‘baby Carter’ and that’s how I got the name Chip,” he said.

Chip Carter was married in 1973 to Caron Griffin and they had a son named James Earl Carter IV. The couple divorced in 1980. Chip Carter would later marry Ginger Hodges and they had a daughter named Margaret Alicia Carter. Today, Chip Carter is married to Becky Payne, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

Chip Carter welcomed guests to the late Rosalynn Carter’s memorial service and called his mother his “hero.”

“I will always love my mother. I will cherish how she and Dad raised their children. They’d given us such a great example of how a couple should relate. Let me finish by saying that my mother, Rosalynn Carter, was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met and pretty to look at, too. Thank you,” he said.

Jeff Carter

Donnel Jeffrey Carter is the youngest son and third child of the former president and former first lady.

Jeff Carter was born in August 1952 in Connecticut and attended Georgia Southwestern State University, where he would meet his future wife, the late Annette Davis Carter.

The couple married in 1975, lived at the White House and, later, had three children – sons Joshua, Jeremy and James. Jeremy Carter died in 2015 after an apparent heart attack, according to the biography “His Very Best Jimmy Carter, a Life,” by Jonathan Alter.

Amy Carter

Amy Lynn Carter is the youngest of the Carter kids and was born in Plains in October 19, 1967.

Amy was one of the speakers at her late mother’s memorial service and read letters her father Jimmy had written to her mother Rosalynn.

“My mom spent most of her life in love with my dad. Their partnership and love story was a defining feature of her life,” Amy Carter said. “Because he isn’t able to speak to you today. I am going to share some of his words about loving and missing her.”

“This is from a letter he wrote 75 years ago while he was serving in the Navy. ‘My darling, every time I have ever been away from you, I have been thrilled when I returned to discover just how wonderful you are. While I’m away, I try to convince myself that you really are not, could not be as sweet and beautiful as I remember. But when I see you, I fall in love with you all over again. Does that seem strange to you? It doesn’t to me. Goodbye, darling. Until tomorrow, Jimmy,'” she finished.

Amy Carter spent her young teenage years in the White House when her father was president and her mother was first lady, between 1977 and 1981.

In 1996, Amy Carter married James Wentzel and the couple had a son, Hugo James Wentzel, who was born on July 29, 1999. The couple later divorced and Amy Carter remarried Jay Kelly. They also welcomed a son, named Errol Carter Kelly.

In the summer of 2023, Hugo James Wentzel appeared on the second season of the reality competition show “Claim to Fame,” which features celebrity relatives, and revealed he was one of the Carters’ grandchildren.

“He’s an amazing grandpa, honestly. I love him so much. I call him Papa,” Wentzel said of the former president. “He led America and my family very well. I stand for everything he stands for. He believes in equality for everyone, regardless of race, class, gender, anything. He’s just an amazing person. I aspire to be like him one day.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.