Apalachee High School Shooting: What We Know
Here’s what we know so far about the school shooting at Apalachee High School. Although a suspect is in custody and has been charged, the investigation is ongoing.
What Happened
A 14-year-old student has been charged with the murder of two students and two teachers in a shooting that occurred at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, on the morning of 4 September.
According to a student and eyewitness who spoke with CNN, the alleged shooter left his Algebra 1 class at around 9:45 a.m., with the classroom door closing and automatically locking behind him. When he returned and knocked to be let back in, the student who approached the door did not open it after noticing through the door’s window that he had a firearm. The witness said that the shooter then went to a neighboring classroom and opened fire at around 10:20 a.m.
The alleged shooter, who will be tried as an adult, surrendered to officers—including local law enforcement and school resource officers (SROs)—who arrived on the scene within minutes of the shooting, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI).
Barrow County has cancelled classes for its schools for the remainder of the week. They have also made crisis counselors available during the closures.
The incident is the deadliest school shooting in Georgia’s history, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.
However, “it could have been a whole lot worse than what it was,” says Jeffrey Slotnick, CPP, PSP, founder and president of Setracon, an Enterprise Security Risk Management firm. Slotnick is deeply involved with the ongoing development of a school security standard with ASIS International.
The high school is next to Haymon-Morris Middle School and Yargo Elementary School, with a large athletic field and detached facilities on campus. Despite the sprawl, one thing evident to Slotnick is that the school was correct in having practiced lockdowns with students and staff.
According to mass shooting expert Katherine Schweit, “security begins with the widest perimeter you can set and trained security personnel and others who know how to watch for and respond effectively to anomalies. Outside or inside, it begins with knowing when something isn’t right.”
The Victims
The two slain students have been identified as Christian Angulo, 14, and Mason Schermerhorn, 14.
Schermerhorn “was described by friends of his family as a lighthearted teenager who liked spending time with his family, reading, telling jokes, playing video games, and visiting Walt Disney World,” according to The New York Times. “He had recently started at the school.”
Two teachers were also killed: Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53.
Aspinwall was a math teacher and an assistant football coach. He is survived by two daughters and a wife. Aspinwall was one of the head coach’s first hires last season, coming in from a high school in Lawrenceville to serve as the team’s defensive coordinator, according to the Athens Banner-Herald.
Of the other nine people injured during the attack, the GBI disclosed that eight of them were students and one was a teacher. The injured were taken to several hospitals for treatment, including Grady Memorial Hospital. None of their injuries are expected to result in additional fatalities, according to the GBI.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told reporters that authorities are unaware of any connections between the suspect and the victims.
The Alleged Shooter
GBI Director Chris Hosey identified the suspected shooter as Colt Gray, 14.
Authorities are still investigating how the shooter was able to bring a firearm into the school.
Warning Signs
Last year and one county over from Winder and Apalachee High School, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office interviewed Gray and his father after the FBI received several anonymous tips about online threats about carrying out a school shooting. After the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center determined that the original online post was published by someone in Georgia, the Bureau’s field office in Atlanta passed along the information to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office.
Gray denied that he was author of the online threats about a future school shooting.
After receiving the alert from the FBI, Jackson County authorities also notified local schools about the issue and suggested ongoing monitoring of Gray. However, it is currently unclear if those authorities also notified officials at Apalachee High School since it is located in outside Jackson County.
“Nearly every person, every step of the way, everyone who had a chance to intervene seems to have done what they were supposed to do, and this still happened,” Schweit says. “If we did the right things and this was the outcome, we need to reevaluate every step along the way to find a way to keep guns out of the hands of troubled people.”
Information and Misinformation
The GBI provided regular updates about the shooting and the investigation on Wednesday, and representatives from the Barrow County’s Sheriff’s Office also spoke with reporters.
Along with disseminating information to families, the community, and the press, officials also addressed growing concerns stemming from misinformation from nonofficial channels. For example, the GBI emphasized in a press conference that there was no evidence that suggested there was more than one shooter, nor was there a list indicating that multiple schools were targets by the alleged shooter.
This is an effective method of crisis communications, security experts tell Security Management. “The way you fight misinformation or disinformation is by having regular press briefings and not hiding the truth,” Slotnick says.
To assist with communications and other aftermath of a shooting or other major incident, “every school district should be following the incident command system,” says Paul Timm, PSP, director of education safety with Allegion. The incident command system (ICS) is a structure that delegates and manages a school’s response for various emergency incidents, with those involved in the response falling under the command of an incident commander. This individual is designated by school leadership to manage the incident and is responsible for the objectives, strategies, and priorities of responding to the incident, according to the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
As part of the ICS, the district should have one person tasked as a designated media coordinator, and sometimes that may be in coordination with law enforcement.
“The district should follow a 'one voice, one message' practice,” Timm says, with all questions and information about the incident directed to the coordinator. This can help keep parents informed with accurate information and keep them from hearing or reading about misinformation from less reliable sources.
In these scenarios, it helps to be both as quick and as accurate as possible.
“We’re going to err on the side of too much information and we’re going to err on the side of too little detail,” Timm says. For example, if there is a knife attack at the school that results in injuries but no deaths, Timm recommends that a statement relaying accurate information that is not too detailed. State that the weapon was a knife and not a gun to avoid speculation falsely informing the community that there is an active shooter. Then, to reduce panic among parents and families, acknowledge that there were no deaths and that the families of those injured have been contacted by school authorities. With good media outreach, the information is not only verified and accurate, it is also controlled.
For other organizations looking to be prepared in case of a shooting, natural disaster, or other incident, Slotnick recommends having an incident command team that has practiced how to respond to various scenarios and can follow ICS principles. This way, when something does happen, “it becomes a matter of doing what you’ve practiced,” he adds.
Routine can also make a big difference in communications with parents and the community. Timm recommends that even before an incident occurs, schools should have already informed parents and guardians about “how we’re going to be communicating, the platforms or vehicles of communication, and how regularly communications will occur.”
“Responding to an emergency is easier if you have a plan, and not just for the office,” Schweit says. “Every family should share with each other who they will call and where they will go when an emergency happens. …Quick text message to each other or through proxies can assure everyone is ok and next steps.”
As evidenced through the alerts sent out to staff and classrooms in Apalachee High School, communication systems during an attack can make a big difference. Other witnesses reported that once an alert went out, teachers and students in some classrooms were able to make sure doors were closed and move to areas in the room where they would not be visible from the door. A locked door can sometimes buy targets enough time for law enforcement to arrive and engage a shooter.
While school staff reported receiving direct alerts about the shooting, Timm recommends including students’ cell phones in mass notification systems.
“You don’t want them to walk into an ongoing situation,” he says. In instances where unaccompanied students may be outside of the school and about to head back into the classrooms, a direct alert to their phones can prevent further injuries or loss of life.
If campuses are widespread and feature large outdoor facilities—such as athletic fields or parking lots—Slotnick recommends solutions like emergency blue lights, which can feature different security functions, including alarm buttons, cameras, two-way communication, and sensors. “Integrated two-way communications and the ability to hear and be heard are very important,” Slotnick says. What schools will be able to do will also depend on state regulations and requirements.
Timm, who has written a book on school security, adds that sometimes he works with schools to create a safety planning team, which is establishes how to respond and train for a crisis. In these instances, he always includes students from the school, with the exception of those in grades pre-K through 5. As the team looks for solutions, this involvement gives the students a voice, one Timm values since the students are not only more adept at current and emerging technology, but also because they have a better understanding of what’s going on within the larger student body.
For more from Security Management about school security, early intervention, and emergency response, check out these articles from our archive:
- How Crisis Intervention Informs Proactive Security in Schools
- School Principals Band Together to Offer Support After School Violence
- Fast Facts: 4 Student Behavioral Changes That Spark Concern
- Strengthening Schools: A Look at K-12 Security Layers and Emergency Preparedness
- 3 Lessons for Building a Stronger School Security Culture
- Clarifying Crisis Communications
- Developing a Better Student Reunification Process
