US teen charged with murder of four people at his high school

Photo: Mike Stewart Associated Press Two students sit in front of a memorial to the victims of the shootings at Apalachee High School in Winder

Agence France-Presse in Washington

Published at 8:18 p.m.

• United States

A 14-year-old boy was charged Thursday with the murder of four people at his high school in the southeastern United States the previous day, local authorities announced.

The tragedy was part of a gruesome series of shootings in the United States, which has long been plagued by school and university shootings.

The suspect is accused of killing two teachers and two 14-year-old boys, also students at Apalachee High School in Winder, about 70 kilometers northeast of Atlanta.

The Georgia State Bureau of Investigation, which said he would be tried as an adult, said he would be arraigned Friday before a court.

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“The investigation into the Apalachee High School shooting is ongoing,” the office said on X. “This is day two of a very complex investigation and due process is paramount,” it added, noting that autopsies of the victims were scheduled for Thursday.

Such tragedies are recurrent in the United States, where there are more guns than people and where regulations on the purchase of weapons, including military-grade weapons, are relatively lax.

According to CNN on Thursday, citing anonymous sources, the weapon used Wednesday was an AR-15 assault rifle — the name of which often crops up in such tragedies — and had been given by the teenager's father as a gift to his son.

The question of the responsibility of the parents of minor perpetrators is increasingly pressing.

“How can you have an assault rifle in your home, not locked up, and know that your child knows where it is?” President Joe Biden asked Thursday. “We need to hold parents accountable who let their children have access to these weapons.”

In April, the parents of a teenager who killed four students at his Michigan high school were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison, a first in the United States.

Polls show that a majority of voters support tighter controls on gun purchases and use, something the powerful gun lobby, the NRA, opposes.