Georgia school shooting live updates: Two students, two teachers killed at Apalachee High School, 14-year-old in custody

The 14-year-old suspect in the deadly Apalachee High School shooting was investigated last year over online threats about a school shooting, federal officials said.

“In May 2023, the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center received several anonymous tips about online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location and time," the FBI and Jackson County Sheriff’s Office said in a joint statement. The online threats contained photos of guns, they said.

“Within 24 hours, the FBI determined the online post originated in Georgia, and the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office referred the information to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office for action.”

The sheriff's office identified a possible subject, a 13-year-old male, and interviewed him and his father, officials said. The FBI confirmed that the 13-year-old is the same person in custody related to today’s shootings.

"The father stated he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them. The subject denied making the threats online. Jackson County alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the subject," the agencies said in a statement tonight.

“At that time, there was no probable cause for arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action on the local, state, or federal levels.”

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Eight of the nine people who were injured and taken to hospitals after today’s high school shooting were students, authorities said.

One of the injured in the incident at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, is a teacher, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said.

Two Apalachee High School students and two high school teachers were killed. A 14-year-old suspect was arrested.

WINDER, Ga. — A 30-minute vigil ended tonight with community members praying and lighting candles for the victims of this morning's deadly school shooting.

Many cried and hugged each other. A few let balloons float into the air.

While holding three balloons, Matt White, 61, said he had moved to Winder from Athens, Georgia, three years ago for peace.

“It was impossible for me not to come here and be among my community. You never expect something like this," he said. "You see it other places. But now, we have to figure out how to heal. And it has to be together. It can’t be as individuals.”

WINDER, Ga. — As the sun began to settle behind thick clouds at Jug Tavern Park, Winder City Council Member Power Evans struggled to find the right words.

Hundreds of teary-eyed locals reeling from today's tragedy at Apalachee High School gathered tonight for a vigil to help process the shooting and mourn the four victims.

“Whether you have a student, whether you’re the mother or father of a student, brother or sister, whether you’re a teacher, an Apalachee teacher, this all affects us,” he said, finally.

“We may be a county of 90,000 people, but we’re still a small community, and when one of us hurts, we all hurt.”

WINDER, Ga. —  Though she's not a student at Apalachee High, Gretchen Gierlach, an 18-year-old student at Georgia Gwinnett College, felt compelled to come to campus this evening.

“I didn’t come here for answers. I simply see an issue," she said. "I’m here for the family who are suffering from this tragedy. I’m here to support them through this awful, awful, awful tragedy."

Two students and two teachers died in today's shooting.

"I keep hearing the same thing on the news: How this keeps happening. This is, unfortunately, just another statistic," Gierlach said. "These kids are desensitized to this entire situation."

Eighty-five percent of registered voters younger than 30 said they were at least somewhat concerned about “the possibility of gun violence in school or public spaces,” according to a new NBC News Stay Tuned Gen Z Poll powered by SurveyMonkey.

That includes 59% who said they were “very concerned.”

Today’s deadly shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, is the second school shooting involving an active shooter in 2024, according to a count of school shootings by NBC News.

The other school shooting this year occurred on Jan. 4, when a 17-year-old student at Perry High School in Perry, Iowa, fatally shot a sixth-grader, wounded four others, and then killed himself.

The school shooting tracker is a project by NBC News designed to add consistency to statistics used by news agencies and other organizations, as well as to identify and contextualize shootings in all types of schools from kindergarten to college, across the U.S.

The shooting at Apalachee High School occurred a little over a month after the first day of school for the 2024-'25 school year, which was Aug. 1, according to its online calendar.

School Shooting Tracker: Counting school shootings since 2013

WINDER, Ga. — Hours after the deadly shooting at Apalachee High School, a heavy police presence remains in the area.

At 6 p.m., a helicopter circled the campus from above. The street and perimeter of the school are lined with media.

While the scene at the school was bustling, the neighborhood of single-family homes across the street is quiet. Not one person could be seen lingering outside.

The city of Winder will hold a vigil at 7 tonight after today’s deadly shooting at a high school.

The vigil will be at Jug Tavern Park in the city of around 18,300.

The city said in an announcement on Facebook that the event will be “for a time to be together and grieve for the horrific events that unfolded in Barrow County today.”

Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith pledged that “hate will not prevail” after today’s deadly shooting at Apalachee High School.

“This is home for me. I was born and raised here. I went to school in this school system. My kids go to this school system. I’m proud of this school system,” Smith said. “My heart hurts for these kids. My heart hurts for this community.”

“But I want to make it very clear that hate will not prevail in this county. I want that to be very clear and known,” he said. “Love will prevail over what happened today.”

A motive in the shooting is unclear, and Smith said he did not know why the shooter opened fire. Smith described the shooting as “pure evil.”

Investigators could not immediately determine whether the 14-year-old shooting suspect targeted the victims at Apalachee High School or it was a random attack.

"We don't know of any targets at this point," Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told reporters. "We have not identified that at this point."

Smith also said there were no clear connections between the suspect and the victims.

Four people were killed and nine injured in the shooting.

A campus police officer quickly confronted a 14-year-old gunman, who is a student at the school, and got him to surrender immediately, officials said,

"Our school resource officer engaged him and the shooter quickly realized that if he did not give up, that it would end with an OIS — an officer involved shooting," Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told reporters.

"He gave up, got on the ground and the deputy took him into custody."

Barrow County Schools will be closed for the rest of the week.

"Our schools will be closed for the remainder of this week as we cooperate fully with law enforcement to get answers to the many questions that we all have," district Superintendent Dallas LeDuff told reporters.

Two of the people fatally shot at Apalachee High School today were students and two were teachers, a law enforcement official said.

Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, did not immediately provide additional details about the victims' identities.

A 14-year-old student was identified as the shooter who opened fire at Georgia's Apalachee High School, killing four people.

The victims included two students and two adults, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey told reporters.

The teen will be treated as an adult in his arrest and prosecution, Hosey said.

Eight people, including three with gunshot wounds, were taken to three Georgia hospitals today after the shooting at Apalachee High School, a hospital spokesperson said.

The patients were taken to North Georgia Medical Center facilities in Barrow, Gainesville and Braselton, the spokesperson said.

In addition to the patients with gunshot wounds, five people were hospitalized with panic attack symptoms, the spokesperson said.

Former President Donald Trump lashed out at the unidentified shooter, calling the attacker at a Georgia high school a "deranged monster."

“Our hearts are with the victims and loved ones of those affected by the tragic event in Winder, GA," the GOP presidential nominee said in a statement. "These cherished children were taken from us far too soon by a sick and deranged monster.”

The identities and details of the victims have not been made public. At least four people were killed in gunfire this morning at Apalachee High School.

Golf coach David Phenix was among those injured in the shooting at Apalachee High School today, his daughter said.

In a Facebook post, Katie Phenix wrote that her father was shot in the foot and hip, shattering his hip bone.

David Phenix was alert and awake when hospitalized, she wrote, and he was in stable condition after being released from surgery.

“We are so, so lucky, but please keep our family as well as the AHS family in your prayers,” she wrote.

A student who witnessed the deadly school shooting in Georgia described the “scary” scene and said many kids were crying. 

Vice President Kamala Harris lamented the "senseless" Georgia school shooting that claimed at least four lives — because "it doesn't have to be this way."

She started a New Hampshire campaign stop by thanking first responders who rushed to Apalachee High School and limited the bloodshed.

"This is just a senseless tragedy on top of so many senseless tragedies, and it's just outrageous that every day in our country, in the United States of America, that parents have to send their children to school worried about whether or not their child will come home alive," Harris told supporters in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

"We have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country once and for all. You know, it doesn't have to be this way. It doesn't have to be this way."

An Apalachee High School student describes the panic she felt when shots rang out from the classroom next to hers and the moments that followed as she sheltered in place with other students.

The suspected shooter in today's deadly violence is a teenager, multiple senior law enforcement officials told NBC News.

Police are working to determine the teen's name and whether they had a prior affiliation with the school, the officials said.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemned the deadly shooting in Georgia and joined the president in calling on Congress to take action and pass either an assault weapons ban or universal background checks.

President Joe Biden thanked first responders for catching the suspected Apalachee High School gunman and called for an end to this “gun violence epidemic."

"We are closely coordinating with officials at the federal, state and local level, and are grateful for the first responders who brought the suspect into custody and prevented further loss of life," Biden said in a statement. “Ending this gun violence epidemic is personal to me.”

The president challenged Republicans to work with Democrats on gun safety legislation.

"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. "We must ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines once again, require safe storage of firearms, enact universal background checks, and end immunity for gun manufacturers.”

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that four people are dead and nine injured after the shooting at the Apalachee High School today. 

They added the suspect is alive and in custody.

Miguel Eduardo Perichi Orta, a sophomore, recounted the moments surrounding the shooting. He told WXIA reporters that he heard banging following a loud boom.

"I was shaking, scared," Miguel said. "I couldn't communicate with my phone for half an hour, and I didn't know what was going to happen."

Once the police let students out of the classrooms, Miguel described seeing gunpowder and blood on the ground.

"I saw like a huge puddle of blood in the classroom, and that really, it like dropped my stomach," he said. "It was heartbreaking to see that."

Miguel said he was "upset and disappointed" over the deadly violence.

"If something like this can happen here, when you think it's a normal day, it can happen anywhere, and that's what really hurts," he said.

Camille Nelms said she was crying when a gunman fire on her classroom.

As bullets came flying into the room, the teacher and students tried to take shelter in the corner, the teen said.

"I was crying, I didn't want to die that way," Nelms told NBC affiliate WXIA of Atlanta. "I don't want to meet the Lord that way."

Jackie Moore, the mother of an Apalachee freshman, spoke with NBC News about what her daughter knew about the moments leading up to the shooting.

One of her daughter’s friends, who was in a classroom two doors down from where the shooting occurred, said she heard someone banging on a door and shouting, “Open the f---ing door, let us in” before gunshots rang out. He said he then witnessed gunpowder, gun shells and blood everywhere.

Fortunately, Moore was able to find her daughter after rushing to the school.

"I literally stopped everything and took off just to be here," Moore said, her voice trembling. "My heart was just breaking because my daughter wasn’t responding to her texts or phone calls. It was terrifying."

Moore is now waiting to reunite with her son, who attends a nearby middle school.

Federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and ATF, are on the scene in Georgia to assist local authorities in the ongoing probe at Apalachee High School, a "devastated" Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

"We are still gathering information but the FBI and ATF are on the scene, working with state, local and federal partners," Garland told reporters.

"I'm devastated for the families who have been affected by this terrible tragedy. The Justice Department stands ready to provide resources or support the Winder community needs in the days ahead."

WXIA reporters spoke with a neighbor of an Apalachee High School student who rushed to the school and confirmed that the student was safe.

"I'm sure he's devastated," the neighbor said. "He probably doesn't want to finish the rest of the year. His last year, and this is what happens."

The neighbor said that the student heard the shooting and called his mom.

"He's like, 'They're shooting, they're shooting right across from my classroom,'" the neighbor said. "He called his mom devastated, I'm sure."

Georgia law enforcement officials say a suspect is in custody after a shooting that resulted in multiple casualties after a shooting at Apalachee High School.

Sheriff Jud Smith said that schools surrounding Apalachee High School, which were placed on a soft lockdown after reports of the shooting, would release their students soon as families anxiously await reunions with their students.

Smith called the investigation "very active and ever-developing," as officials of numerous sheriff’s offices from across the state of Georgia could be seen on Apalachee’s campus.

The deadly school shooting, about 45 miles northeast of Atlanta, has prompted officials to step up patrols around campuses in Georgia's biggest city.

​"I have been in contact with APD chief, and APD has been working with Atlanta Public Schools Police Department to bolster patrols around our schools for the rest of the day out of an abundance of caution," Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said in a statement.

"​APD has also been on standby in case other law enforcement agencies need assistance with this incident. May God comfort the victims and their loved ones in the difficult days ahead."

Reuniting students with their parents is the immediate top priority of law enforcement in the wake of this deadly shooting, officials said.

Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith confirmed that one suspect as in custody.

"We're in the process of reunifying our students with their parents," Smith told reporters. "Obviously, that's chaotic, but we want to be respectful of them and their privacy as well."

Smith did not reveal any additional details about the shooting at Apalachee High School but said he hopes to give more information at a 4 p.m. news conference.

Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., who lost her son Jordan Davis to gun violence in 2012, said in a post to X: “I am praying for the students of Apalachee High School and the community of Winder. I am praying for families across our state and entire country. Too many continue to experience the pain of gun violence. No family should have to go through this.”

McBath became active in efforts to curb gun violence after her son’s killing and made the issue a main thrust of her campaign for Congress in 2018.

Shirly Powers is the grandmother of an Apalachee student and spoke with NBC News about her urgent rush to the school.

"My daughter called me at work screaming that there was a shooter at Apalachee and begged me to get there as quick as possible," Powers said.

She said the principal instructed her grandson to run to the band room.

"Start praying, for all the kids, not just my grandson," she added.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp dispatched state resources to assist local authorities in the ongoing shooting probe at Apalachee High School, about 45 miles northeast of Atlanta.

"I have directed all available state resources to respond to the incident at Apalachee High School and urge all Georgians to join my family in praying for the safety of those in our classrooms, both in Barrow County and across the state," Kemp said in statement.

"We will continue to work with local, state, and federal partners as we gather information and further respond to this situation," Kemp added.

A WXIA helicopter showed streams of cars and a heavy police presence at Apalachee High School as families waited to search for their students. Federal agents were also at the scene.

The high school, which has approximately 1,900 students, has been in session for just a few weeks, since Aug. 1.

A Grady Health System spokesperson said the hospital has so far received one gunshot wound victim from Apalachee High School.

Grady Hospital is about an hour's drive from the school.

President Biden has been briefed by his Homeland Security adviser, Liz Sherwood-Randall, on the shooting, per a senior White House official.

Law enforcement officials briefed on the Georgia investigation into the shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County say that initial information from the scene is that at least two people have been killed and at least four have been injured.

The officials cautioned that the information is preliminary and subject to change. 

It is not yet clear if the victims were students or teachers. A suspect is in custody, and it also isn’t clear if he is among those injured or killed. 

One suspect is in custody after gunfire was reported at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., and casualties have been reported. NBC News’ Anne Thompson reports on the latest details from the shooting.