The death of four people was caused by Georgia high school shooting on Wednesday, a few weeks after classes start.
A suspect is in custody, according to law enforcement officials. The shooter who opened fire inside Apalachee High School is believed to be a 14-year-old boy, a law enforcement source told CNN. The source said it was not immediately known whether the teen attended the school in question.
Nine people were taken to hospital with injuries. from Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia.
“What we’re seeing behind us today is a terrible thing,” Sheriff Jud Smith said during a brief news conference on school grounds.
The incident, which occurred at the school about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta, appeared to be under control and the students were released by noon, a Barrow County schools spokesman said.
Local television stations broadcast images of parents lining up in cars on a street outside the school, hoping to be reunited with their children. The school, which had nearly 1,900 students last year, started classes on Aug. 1.
Sheriff Smith said the first call police received about a shooting at the school came around 9:30 a.m., just over an hour after classes started.
Live aerial television footage showed several ambulances outside the school.
CNN reported seeing a patient being loaded into a medical helicopter that landed at the school. “Multiple law enforcement agencies and Fire/EMS personnel were dispatched to the school in reference to a suspected active shooter,” the sheriff’s office said.
Threatening phone call
According to CNN, the school where the shooting took place had already received a threat by phone.
Law enforcement officials in Georgia say Apalachee High School received a call this morning warning that there would be shootings at five schools and that Apalachee would be the first.
It is not known who made the call. Authorities told CNN they are investigating the call and where it came from.
Biden: We can’t accept this as normal
President Joe Biden “mourns the deaths” of those killed in the shooting and said “we cannot continue to accept this as normal.”
“What should have been a joyous back-to-school season in Winder, Georgia, has now turned into another horrific reminder of how gun violence continues to destroy our communities. Students across the country are learning to hunker down and take cover instead of reading and writing. We can no longer accept this as normal,” the president said in a statement.
Biden also used his statement to call on Congress to act and pass an assault weapons ban, as it has done in the past.
“After decades of inaction, Republicans in Congress must finally say ‘enough is enough’ and work with Democrats to pass common-sense gun safety legislation,” the president added.
The US has seen hundreds of school and college shootings in the past two decades, with the deadliest resulting in more than 30 deaths at Virginia Tech in 2007. The carnage has sparked a heated debate over US gun laws and the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which enshrines the right to “keep and bear arms”.
With information from CNN, Reuters