Shootings in the UK & Around the World

14-year-old Colt Gray is in custody after four killed in Georgia high school shooting..Report by Nathan Williams

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A 14-year-old boy is to be charged with murder after four people were killed and nine injured in a shooting at a Georgia high school on Wednesday.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said those killed were two pupils and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Winder, Barrow County.

The boy, named as Colt Gray, a pupil, was arrested by two officers on the school campus and was in custody, a spokesman said. He will be charged as an adult.

Local sheriff Judd Smith described the attack as "pure evil".

Officers first recieved reports of a shooting at the school of around 1,900 pupils around 10:20 local time (13:20BST).

"Within minutes law enforcement was on scene, as well as two school resource officers assigned to the school who immediately encountered the subject," the sheriff said in a news conference.

"The subject immediately surrendered. He gave up, got on the ground. And the officers took him into custody."

Officials said the suspect is a student at the school. They said no motive had been identified and "we don’t know of any targets at this point".

They have not said what type of weapon was used, or how many bullets were fired.

Dozens of police officers swiftly responded to the school, which was placed on lockdown and cleared, with pupils later released to their families.

"This is going to take multiple days for us to get answers as to what happened and why this happened," Sheriff Smith said.

Alexsandra Romero, a second year pupil, said she was sitting in classroom when someone came barging in and yelled at students, warning them to get down.

"I can just remember my hands were shaking," she told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. "I felt bad because everybody was crying, everybody was trying to find their siblings.

"I can still picture everything, like the blood, the shouting..."

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said on Twitter/X that he was "praying for the safety of those in our classrooms" and that he was directing "all available state resources".

In a statement, President Biden said he and First Lady Jill Biden were "mourning the deaths of those whose lives were cut short due to more senseless gun violence".

"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 tear our communities apart," he said.

Speaking at a campaign rally in New Hampshire, Vice-President Kamala Harris called the shooting "a senseless tragedy".

"It's just outrageous that every day in our country... that parents have to send their children to school worried about whether their child will come home alive.

"It doesn't have to be this way."

Attorney General Merrick Garland, the top law enforcement official in the US, said federal agents were aiding the investigation. "I'm devastated for the families who have been affected by this terrible tragedy," he said.

US school shooting suspect, 14, quizzed about threats last year..Report by Max Matza, BBC News

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A boy accused of killing four people at his high school in Georgia was interviewed last year by police about anonymous online threats, the FBI has said.

Colt Gray, 14, denied to police in May 2023 he was behind internet posts that contained images of guns, warning of a school shooting.

The suspect opened fire on Wednesday at Apalachee High School in the city of Winder, killing two teachers and two pupils, investigators say. Eight students and one teacher were injured.

He was arrested on campus and will be prosecuted as an adult.

Police have identified the victims as teachers Christina Irimie and Richard Aspinwall and 14-year-old students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo.

In a news conference, Georgia Bureau of Investigation director Chris Hosey said the gun used was an "AR-platform style weapon".

In a statement, the FBI said its National Threat Operations Center had alerted local law enforcement in May 2023 after receiving anonymous tips about "online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location and time".

The agency said that within 24 hours investigators had determined that the threats originated in Georgia.

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Sheriff's deputies interviewed the boy and his father, who "stated he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them", the FBI said.

The suspect, who was 13 years old at the time, denied making the online threats and officials "alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the subject".

"At the time, there was no probable cause for an arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action on the local, state or federal levels," added the FBI statement.

Sheriff Jud Smith described the attack as "pure evil" and said officers were on scene within minutes of receiving 911 calls at 10:20 local time (14:20 GMT).

Two officers assigned to the school "immediately encountered the subject", the sheriff said, adding that the boy "immediately surrendered".

The boy has been interviewed and spoke with investigators once while in custody, Sheriff Smith said.

The sheriff added that no motive had been identified and that law enforcement did not know of "any targets at this point".

Students described chaotic scenes as alerts went out that an attacker was on campus. Classes at Apalachee began last month, but many students across the US are returning to schools this week.

Lyela Sayarath, who was in the alleged attacker's class, told CNN that the suspect left the room at the beginning of an algebra lesson.

She said he came back and knocked on the door, which had locked automatically, but another student refused to let him in after noticing he had a gun.

Lyela told CNN the attacker then went to the classroom next door, where he began shooting.

Marques Coleman, 14, said he saw the attacker holding a "big gun" just before the shooting began.

"I got up, I started running, he started shooting like, like 10 times. He shot at least 10 times," he told CBS News, the BBC's US partner.

"My teacher started barricading the door with desks," he said.

After standing up, the pupil said he saw "one of my classmates on the ground bleeding so bad", another girl shot in the leg and a friend shot in the stomach.

A vigil was held on Wednesday evening in the city of 18,000 residents about 50 miles (80km) from Atlanta.

This was the 23rd US school shooting of 2024, according to a database maintained by magazine Education Week, which counts 11 dead and 38 injured in such attacks so far this year.

David Riedman, who runs the K-12 School Shooting Database, told Reuters news agency that the shooting in Georgia was the first "planned attack" at a school during this autumn term.

The Manchester airport thugs are free,walking the streets.

The Police have been talking to Imans and community leaders at Mosques.

2TK regime.
Blatant.

A year or so ago I went to my grandkids pre school drop off.
There was an armed police guard at the entrance, and on the way out we joined the cars leaving a Jewish School next door. For that school they a security guard carrying an automatic weapon.
It's horrific, chilling to witness. And people actually support people like Trump and Vance. That beggars belief

Can't wait for that.

Well because there are so few licensed firearms in Britain the police  firearms officers can visit  and check how weapons are stored,in the USA there are more guns than people,probably hundreds of thousands of unlicensed guns in the hands of criminals too.

We still get shootings here like the ones in Liverpool last year or the year before,all of those guns were unlicensed (the shooters had previous convictions so they wouldnt have got a firearms license) all the guns had been smuggled into the country, Skorpion machine pistols and Glock pistol.

Your point?

America is a far more violent,and larger country than us.

And according to you those were last year stats.

Our gun comparison is of course going to be lower then their's, that due to our different gun laws.

The stabbing percentage is far more comparable, given our different populations.

I wonder what it would be given our stabbing increase daily in this country in 2024.

A suspended sentence!!!!! WTF. Yet other first offenders have been sent to prison for over a year for something they posted on Facebook?!?!?!!

I remember the gun ban in the UK. I had some friends who belonged to gun clubs and used to shoot for pleasure on the ranges. The gun ban only really affected these people, because their weapons were registered. The criminals still kept their weapons ! In fact, gun crime in the UK is now bigger than it was before the gun ban!
The US is a completely different kettle of fish. The sheer amount of weapons in the public domain makes virtually any attempt at gun control pointless. The authorities just don't have the resources to control it.

As to the "right to bear arms", well, to change basics in the Constitution is about as difficult in the US as it is to make changes to the NHS here, as it's seen as almost religious. 

Just what is "gun control" anyway? I read about it all the time, but to me it's just another of those throw away comments. How will "gun control" work in reality?