Inside the Georgia high school where a sleepy morning was pierced by gunfire

WINDER, Georgia. – It was the middle of second period on a Wednesday morning at Apalachee High School, and the boy few knew was skipping his algebra class in J Hall again. That didn’t strike his classmates as unusual.

“He got up sometime in the morning and class continued as normal,” Lyela Sayarath said. “He was probably just skipping classes.”

Many teenagers weren’t fully awake at the high school near Winder in rapidly suburbanizing Barrow County. Junior Julie Sandoval dozed through her physics class while other students caught up on work. Sophomore Jacob King also dozed off — in world history after a morning football practice.

But terror and panic soon erupted when authorities say Colt Gray, the 14-year-old student who had left class, returned to the hallway with an assault rifle and opened fire. Four people were killed and nine wounded, seven of them by gunfire, in the latest school shooting to shock the nation.

Gray is charged with four counts of murder. Authorities have not yet said where he got the gun, how he brought it to campus or what he did with it in the two hours between the start of classes at 8:15 a.m. and the first shots rang out around 10:20 a.m.

Authorities have not said whether Gray was being sought before the shooting. “We’re still trying to sort out a lot of the timeline,” Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said Wednesday.

On Thursday, officials also arrested his father, Colin Gray, and charged him with involuntary manslaughter, second-degree murder and cruelty to children, saying he knowingly allowed his son to possess a gun.

The school was alerted Wednesday morning when several teachers activated their portable panic buttons, which Sheriff Jud Smith said had been distributed to staff just days earlier. That triggered a lockdown and a warning immediately appeared on smart boards in classrooms across the sprawling school.

“The screen… said ‘lockdown’ in big red words, and the overhead light started blinking,” said Layla Ferrell, a junior who was in a food and nutrition class in another classroom.

Many thought it was a drill. Georgia schools are required to conduct at least one active shooter drill by Oct. 1 each year.

“I thought it was fake until my friend told me it wasn’t,” King said. He added: “They didn’t really act like it was real.”

Some heard what sounded like a loud metallic bang.

“At first it sounded more like someone had hit a locker,” Ferrell said.

But J Hall had no doubts.

Sayarath said that when the suspect tried to return to class, a student saw what the warrants describe as “a black AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle” and refused to let him in. The school’s classroom doors lock automatically and must be opened from the inside, a “hardening” precaution in the era of school shootings in the United States.

Sophomore Kaylee Abner said a student who left her geometry class to take a test elsewhere ran back.

“She ran inside, closed the door and then we heard three shots,” Abner said.

Junior Landon Culver saw the shooter after leaving Algebra II.

“I went outside to get water and heard gunshots and bullets going by my head,” Culver said. “It looked like he was wearing a black hoodie and had an AR rifle, so I didn’t stick around long to watch.”

Marques Coleman Jr. told the Washington Post that the gunman looked through an open door in his algebra classroom and fired into it, hitting several people, including Christian Angulo, who died. Other people were shot in the hallway.

Kassidy Reed, a senior, was retaking a test in a hallway when she heard gunshots from around the corner. A teacher told everyone to run away.

“He picked us up and told us to run because our classroom door was locked so we couldn’t get in,” Reed said.

A teacher across the hall opened the door to her chemistry classroom and students rushed in. “I hid under a lab table,” Reed said.

Teachers turned off the lights and herded students into corners or behind desks. Classroom furniture became makeshift barricades.

“We put desks and chairs against our door and set it up so no one could get in, and then we all just stood there quietly, waiting,” Ferrell said.

Authorities say the suspect fatally shot students Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, both 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53. The nine who were injured — eight students and one teacher — are expected to recover.

One of three school resource officers on campus quickly located the shooter, who surrendered and was taken into custody, the sheriff said.

Some students said they heard an officer yelling at the shooter to stop and put down his gun.

“I heard the yelling, ‘Get down! Get down! Don’t move!’” Reed said. Then, the sound of a “struggle” as the suspect was being handcuffed.

But the terror was not over.

Students said some students and teachers removed their clothes to try to stop the bleeding from gunshot wounds.

Officers with guns drawn searched classroom by classroom for additional wounded as well as possible shooters.

As the students gathered, they called and texted each other and their parents. More than one sent what they feared would be dismissals.

“I love you. I love you so much. Mom, I love you,” Sandoval wrote, crying. “I’m sorry I’m not the best daughter. I love you.”

Sandoval’s mother responded in Spanish to tell him that everything would be okay and that he should trust in God.

“We started praying, because we didn’t know if we were going to make it out alive or not,” said Michelle Moncada, a freshman who was in art class.

Nearby, Sandoval said, another student was on the phone with his mother: “They’re shooting at the school! They’re shooting at the school!”

Abner held the hand of a child who was praying.

“I was just trying to think about happy things, trying not to think about anything negative,” she said.

Hundreds of panicked parents rushed to the school and created a traffic jam on the two-lane roads near Apalachee High. Many abandoned their cars and ran toward the campus.

Shannon Callahan, Ferrell’s mother, said her daughter texted a photo of herself barricaded under a table. “When they stopped texting me, I was completely concerned.”

During the evacuation, King saw the body of what appeared to be a student on the ground. “They were blocking the body,” King said.

Abner also saw what appeared to be a female student who had been shot in the shoulder. She was leaning against a wall while emergency personnel treated her.

Another student was lying on the ground, covering her eyes. Abner said, “I don’t know if she was dead or if she had been shot or something, or if she was just processing the situation.”

Reed saw a gun on the ground and blood.

As they fled, the students abandoned their backpacks, phones and even shoes. Ferrell lost his rainbow Crocs and then made the long walk to his mother’s car in his socks.

Gathered inside the football stadium, the students cried and flailed.

“Everyone is crying, everyone is walking around,” Moncada said. “Everyone is running around trying to see who is OK and who is not.”

In the early afternoon, students began to be handed over to their parents to return home.

But Culver and others said the sound of gunfire will stay with them forever.

“You could hear gunshots, like they were echoing throughout the school,” Culver said. “And you wondered, who among them is going to be someone you’re best friends with or someone you love?”

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Associated Press writer Charlotte Kramon contributed to this article.