Text messages between parents, kids tell story of fear and chaos during Georgia school shooting

September 6, 2024

Text messages sent between parents and students at Apalachee High School during the Sept. 4, deadly shooting are shown here. — ABCNews Photo Illustration/ Sonya Turner/ ABC via Erin Clark/ Becky Van Der Walt

(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.

Generative AI is disrupting creative communities, here’s how they are fighting back

KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — Generative artificial intelligence companies capable of generating creative content are also said to be disrupting the livelihoods of creatives around the world, according to a group of creatives speaking out publicly about the issue.

“The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted, a ” statement signed by 11,500 actors, musicians, authors, photographers, and composers from across the world, read.

Julianne Moore, Kevin Bacon, Thom Yorke and Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus, are among the tens of thousands of creatives who have signed this open letter calling for these companies to stop indiscriminately training on content they say should be licensed.

“This is a major issue for many of the artists, musicians, actors, authors, and other creators whose work is being exploited by AI companies,” said Ed Newton-Rex, a former AI executive who released the statement.

As a former head of audio at Stability AI, Newton-Rex is well acquainted with the internal data training practices of generative AI companies. He resigned over the company’s belief that training their AI models on copyrighted content without licensing it constitutes “fair use.”

Generative AI models have generally scrapped as much content as they could from the internet, downloaded it and trained their model to be able to create new work that is in the style of the work it trained on, Newton-Rex told ABC News.

“None of this revenue is coming back to the original artists,” explained Overlai founder Luke Neumann in a blog post about his new mobile app which aims to protect photography in the age of AI.

Neumann, who also signed the letter, launched the free app Overlai with world-renowned photographers Paul Nicklen and Cristina Mittermeier, when they noticed text-to-image generators could easily replicate the unique styles of both photographers. And, Neumann stresses the amount of work that goes into conservationist photography – the cost of travel and spending weeks, sometimes months in a location documenting a delicate ecosystem.

“I think AI companies really need to think long and hard about like how long they’re going to need organic data and if they want to be messing with these fragile business models of the people out there capturing this stuff,” Neumann to ABC News.

Several lawsuits from creatives ranging from writers to musicians to comedians have piled up against some of the biggest generative AI companies for copyright infringement.

Evacuation order over railcar chemical leak in Ohio canceled: Officials

Florian Roden / EyeEm/Getty Images

(CLEVES, Ohio) — Officials in Hamilton County, Ohio, on Wednesday, lifted the evacuation order that was put in place the night before over a chemical leak from a railcar.

Hamilton County’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency previously told anyone within half a mile of the rail yard to leave the area immediately.

Authorities confirmed Tuesday night that the leak was styrene, a flammable liquid used to make plastics and rubber, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

“The risk of an explosion is our primary concern,” an official said at a Tuesday night news conference. “We are asking residents within a three-quarter-mile radius to shelter in place as a precaution. Experts have assured us that this is well within the safety norms.”

By Wednesday morning, the rail car was no longer “venting,” officials said at a brief press conference.

No one, including train employees, was injured in the incident, officials said.

Officials said 210 homes in Cleves and Whitewater Townships were located in the designated evacuation zone, though how many people were impacted was not immediately known.

The train consisted of 29 cars, some of which were also carrying styrene, officials said.

“Our first priority upon arriving at the scene was removing anything in close proximity to the leak,” an official confirmed Tuesday.

Only one car was found to have leaked styrene, they said.

Cleves Township is almost 17 miles from Cincinnati, while Whitewater Township is about 22 miles away.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg urged those in the area to follow the directions of officials in a social media post on Tuesday.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were briefed on the incident, White House officials said in a statement.

“The President has directed his team to provide any resources that may be needed,” the official said. “We urge residents to heed the warnings of emergency personnel, especially those instructed to evacuate.”

Ohio senator and vice presidential nominee JD Vance said in a statement on X that he and his team were monitoring the incident.

“My team and I are closely tracking a potentially hazardous chemical leak coming from a railcar near Cleves, Ohio,” Vance said. “Local authorities are working diligently to keep everyone safe. We will continue to monitor the situation until it has been resolved.”

Woman dies on 1st day of Burning Man Festival, cause of death not known

Maxar Technologies/Getty Images

(LOVELOCK, Nev.) — Authorities are investigating the death of a 39-year-old woman on the first day of the Burning Man Festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.

Burning Man’s emergency services personnel found the festival attendee, Kendra Frazer, unresponsive around 11:30 a.m. Sunday, according to the Burning Man Project and Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen. Deputies responded and confirmed her death, Allen said.

“Her cause and manner of death are still pending results of an autopsy and toxicology screening,” the sheriff said in a statement on Monday.

“Our thoughts and condolences go out to the family and friends affected by this loss,” festival organizers said in a statement. “The safety and well-being of our staff and community are paramount. We are cooperating fully with local authorities as they investigate.”

This year’s Burning Man festival runs from Aug. 25 to Sept. 2. About 80,000 people attend Burning Man each year, according to the festival’s website.

Last year’s festival was marred by torrential rains, with thousands mired in mud and told to stay in place and conserve food until they could safely exit the festival grounds.