Apalachee High School shooting: Teen charged was interviewed by police in 2023

WINDER, Ga. (AP) — 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 and killed four people and wounded nine, officials said.

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.

At least nine other people — eight students and one teacher at the school in Winder, about an hour’s drive northeast of Atlanta — were taken to hospitals with injuries. All were expected to survive, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said.

The teen, now 14, was to be taken to a regional youth detention facility on Thursday.

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.

The teen earlier left the second period algebra classroom, and Sayarath figured the quiet student who recently transferred was skipping school again.

But he returned later and wanted back in the classroom. Some students went to open the locked door but instead backed away.

“I’m guessing they saw something, but for some reason they didn’t open the door,” Sayarath said.

When she looked at him through a window in the door, she saw the student turn and heard a barrage of gunshots.

“It was about 10 or 15 of them at once, back-to-back,” she said.

The math students ducked onto the floor and sporadically crawled around, looking for a safe corner to hide.

Two school resource officers encountered the shooter within minutes after a report of shots fired went out, 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 narrowed the threats down and