A 14-year-old student suspected of gunning down four people at his Georgia high school Wednesday was previously investigated in connection with threats to carry out a school shooting, federal authorities said.
The suspect, then 13, was a possible suspect in connection with threats made online last year using photos of guns, the FBI’s Atlanta field office said in a joint statement with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office.
Within 24 hours, law enforcement officers interviewed the suspected gunman, who is not named in the statement but was identified earlier by local authorities as Colt Gray, in connection with the threats, the statement says.
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The suspect denied making the threats, the statement says. His father, who was also interviewed, told investigators he had hunting guns in the home but his son did not have unsupervised access to them, according to the statement.
Authorities told local schools to continue monitoring the suspect, the statement says, but there was no probable cause to arrest him.
After the shooting Wednesday, the teen immediately surrendered after a sheriff’s deputy working as a school resource officer “engaged” him, authorities said.
"The shooter quickly realized that if he did not give up, it would end with an OIS,” Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said at a news conference, using the acronym for an officer-involved shooting.
“He got on the ground and the deputy took him into custody,” Smith said.
Two teachers and two students were killed after the gunman opened fire around 10:20 a.m. at Apalachee High School, roughly 45 miles northeast of Atlanta, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey told reporters.
Nine other people — eight teachers and one student — were injured in the shooting, the bureau said in a statement. The statement did not identify the victims.
Hosey said the suspect will be charged with murder and tried as an adult.
A possible motive remained unclear and Smith said it isn’t known if the suspect had specific targets when he allegedly opened fire, Smith said. The sheriff said investigators from his office and the state law enforcement agency were interviewing the teen.
It was not immediately clear what kind of gun was used or how many rounds were fired, Smith said.
The conditions of most of the nine people wounded were not immediately known.
The daughter of one of the victims, golf coach David Phenix, said her father’s hip was shattered after he was struck in the foot and hip. In a Facebook post, she said he was in stable condition after surgery.
A spokesperson for the North Georgia Medical Center said eight patients were taken to three hospitals in its system, including three with gunshot wounds. Five people had panic attack symptoms, the spokesperson said.
The superintendent of Barrow County School District, which Apalachee High School belongs to, said schools would remain closed for the rest of the week “as we fully cooperate to get answers to the many questions we have about what happened here.”
Smith, who said his children attend the school system, described the shooting as “personal.”
“My heart hurts for these kids,” he said. “My heart hurts for this community.”
"Hate will not prevail," he added. "Love will prevail."
The Republican and Democratic candidates for president reacted to the shooting, with Donald Trump calling the gunman "sick and deranged" on his social media platform and Kamala Harris telling a New Hampshire rally "we have to end this epidemic of gun violence."
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said he was "heartbroken" by the shooting.
"This is a day every parent dreads, and Georgians everywhere will hug their children tighter this evening because of this painful event," he said.
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