Teen Charged With Killing 4 At Georgia High School Had Been Focus Of Earlier Tips About Threats

By Sarah Naffa\AP News

Photos: YouTube Screenshots

More than a year ago, tips about online posts threatening a school shooting led Georgia police to interview a 13-year-old boy, but investigators didn’t have enough evidence for an arrest. On Wednesday, that boy opened fire at his high school outside Atlanta, killing four people and wounding nine, officials said. Read more.

Recent developments:

The teen has been charged as an adult in the deaths of Apalachee High School students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and instructors Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said at a news conference.

Armed with an assault-style rifle, the teen turned the gun on students in a hallway at the school when classmates refused to open the door for him to return to his algebra classroom, classmate Lyela Sayarath said. Two school resource officers encountered the shooter within minutes of a report of shots fired, Hosey said. The teen immediately surrendered and was taken into custody.

The teen had been interviewed after the FBI received anonymous tips in May 2023 about online threats to commit an unspecified school shooting, the agency said in a statement. The FBI referred the case to the sheriff’s department in Jackson County and the sheriff’s office interviewed the then-13-year-old and his father, who said there were hunting guns in the house but the teen did not have unsupervised access to them. The teen also denied making any online threats. Authorities were still looking into how the teen obtained the gun used in the shooting and got it into the school.