WINDER, Ga. (AP) — Four people were killed and at least nine were injured Wednesday in a shooting at a high school outside of Atlanta where students ran to seek safety in the football stadium, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said.
Shots were fired Wednesday morning, and officers swarmed the campus of Apalachee High School as parents raced to find out if their children were safe at the school in Winder, Georgia.
A suspect was in custody, authorities said. It was not immediately clear if the shooter was a student at the school.
“What you see behind us is an evil thing,” Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said at a brief news conference outside the school. He declined to give details about casualties, or about the suspect.
The episode is just the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut, Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas. The killings in classrooms have set off fervent debates about gun control and frayed the nerves of parents whose children are growing up accustomed to active shooter drills in classrooms. But they have done little to move the needle on national gun laws.
Jacob King, a sophomore football player, said he had dozed off in his world history class after a morning practice when he heard about 10 gunshots.
King said he didn’t believe the shooting was real until he heard an officer yelling at someone to put down their gun. King said when his class was led out, he saw officers shielding what appeared to be an injured student.
Ashley Enoh was at home Wednesday morning when she got a text from her brother, who’s a senior at Apalachee High:
“Just so you know, I love you,” he texted her.
When she asked in the family group chat what was going on, he said there was a shooter at the school. Enoh’s younger sister, a junior at the school, said she had heard about the shooter and that everything was on lockdown.
Few details were immediately available from authorities, who were dispatched shortly before 10:30 a.m. to respond to an “active shooting,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
Helicopter video from WSB-TV showed dozens of law enforcement and emergency vehicles surrounding the school in Barrow County, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta.
When Erin Clark, 42, received a text from her son Ethan, a senior at the high school, that there was an active shooter, she rushed from her job at the Amazon warehouse to the school. The two texted “I love you,” and Clark said she prayed for her son as she drove to the high school.
With the main road blocked to the school, Clark parked and ran with other parents. Parents were then directed to the football field. Amid the chaos, Clark found Ethan sitting on the bleachers.
Clark said her son was writing an essay in class when he first heard the gunshots. Her son then worked with his classmates to barricade the door and hide.
