Four dead after shooting at Georgia school

Photo: Christian Monterrosa Agence France-Presse The school was initially placed in a state of confinement, Fox 5 Atlanta reported.

Agence France-Presse à Winder

Published at 12:26 Updated at 4:32 p.m.

• United States

At least four people were killed and nine injured Wednesday after a shooting at a high school in the southeastern United States, authorities said, and a suspect has been arrested.

“Four dead. Nine people have been sent to various hospitals with injuries,” the Georgia State Bureau of Investigation said on the social network X.

“The suspect is in custody and alive,” it added. According to CNN and ABC News, the suspect is a 14-year-old boy. Authorities have not said anything about the motive.

Multiple emergency vehicles and a large police force were dispatched to Apalachee High School in the town of Winder, about 45 miles northeast of Atlanta.

The shootings are the latest in a sad series of decades of school shootings in the United States — a phenomenon unlike any other in the world.

“We cannot allow this to become the norm,” President Joe Biden said in a statement, after years of trying, unsuccessfully, to better regulate access to firearms.

“We must end this epidemic of gun violence in our country, once and for all,” Vice President Kamala Harris said. “There is no reason to go through this,” the Democratic presidential candidate added during a campaign speech.

Her opponent, Republican Donald Trump, denounced the actions of the shooter, calling him a “sick and deranged monster.”

The state of Georgia, where the shooting took place, is one of the key states that could decide the election in November.

Lockdown and screaming

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that at 10:23 a.m., a student texted his mother: “I think there’s a shooting.” A few minutes later, the Georgia daily writes, he texted her back: “I love you.”

The school in the suburbs of Atlanta, surrounded by greenery, was quickly locked down.

The injured were treated on the scene by emergency workers, according to Fox 5 Atlanta. The students were then evacuated from the school, or gathered on the site of a sports field, according to other aerial images broadcast by the media.

Photo: WSB via Associated Press Students were evacuated from the school or herded to the site of a sports field, according to aerial footage released by media outlets.

“My teacher opened the [classroom] door to see what was happening. Then another teacher ran in and told her to close the door because there was a shooter,” one 17-year-old student, Sergio Caldera, was quoted as saying by ABC.

With the door locked, he and his classmates ran to the back of the room, where they heard screams outside.

The United States is the only developed country in the world to be so regularly bereaved by school shootings, a scourge fueled by the spread of individual weapons.

In May 2022, 19 children and two teachers were victims of a horrific massacre in their school in Uvalde, Texas, committed by an 18-year-old boy using a legally purchased assault rifle.

The number of victims must now be particularly high or the circumstances particularly striking for shootings to generate national media interest.