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

WINDER, Ga. – It was the middle of second period on Wednesday morning at Apalachee High School, and the boy few knew was once again sneaking out of his algebra class in J Hall. This didn’t seem unusual to his classmates.

“At some point in the morning he got up and classes continued as usual,” said Lyela Sayarath. “He was probably just skipping class.”

Many teenagers were still awake at the high school near Winder in the rapidly sprawling suburban Barrow County. Eleventh-grader Julie Sandoval dozed in her physics class while the other students caught up on their material. Sophomore Jacob King also dozed off in world history after morning football practice.

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

Gray is charged with four counts of murder. Authorities have not yet disclosed where he got the gun, how he got it onto 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 being fired at 10:20 a.m.

Law enforcement has not said whether Gray was wanted 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, officers also arrested his father, Colin Gray, and charged him with manslaughter, premeditated murder and child abuse. They said he knowingly allowed his son to possess a weapon.

The alarm went off at the school Wednesday morning when several teachers triggered their portable panic buttons, which Sheriff Jud Smith said had been distributed to staff just days before. That triggered a curfew, and an alert immediately flashed on classroom smartboards throughout the sprawling school.

“On the screen … it said ‘hard lockdown’ in big red letters and the top light started flashing,” said Layla Ferrell, a third-year student taking a food and nutrition class in another hall.

Many thought it was a drill. Schools in Georgia are required to conduct at least one school shooting drill every year by October 1st.

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

Some heard what sounded like a loud, metallic crash.

“At first it sounded more like someone was hitting a locker,” Ferrell said.

But the people at J Hall had no doubts.

Sayarath said when the suspect tried to return to class, a student saw what the warrant said was a “black AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle” and refused to let him in. The school’s classroom doors automatically lock and must be opened from the inside — a “heightening” precaution in an era of school shootings in America.

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

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

Junior Landon Culver caught a glimpse of the shooter after leaving Algebra II.

“I went out to get water and heard gunshots and bullets hitting near my head,” Culver said. “It looked like he was wearing a black hoodie and had an AR, but I just didn’t stick around long to look.”

Marques Coleman Jr. told the Washington Post that the gunman leaned into an open door of his algebra classroom and sprayed it with bullets, hitting people, including Christian Angulo, who died. Others were shot in the hallway.

Twelfth-grader Kassidy Reed was retaking a test in a hallway when she heard gunshots around the corner. A teacher told everyone to flee.

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

A teacher across the hall opened the door to her chemistry classroom and students ran 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 tables and chairs in front of our door and set them up so no one could come in, and then we were all just quiet and waited,” Ferrell said.

According to authorities, the suspect shot two 14-year-old students, Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, as well as teachers Richard Aspinwall (39) and Cristina Irimie (53). The nine injured people – eight students and one teacher – are expected to recover.

One of the school’s three security officers on campus was able to quickly locate the shooter, who then surrendered and was taken into custody, the sheriff said.

Some students said they heard a police officer shouting for the shooter to stop and put down his weapon.

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

But the terror was not over yet.

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

With weapons drawn, officers searched one classroom after another for additional injured people and possible shooters.

As the students huddled together, they called each other and sent text messages and texts to their parents, with quite a few sending what they feared were farewell messages.

“I love you. I love you so much. Mommy, I love you,” wrote a tearful Sandoval. “I’m sorry I’m not the best daughter. I love you.”

Sandoval’s mother replied in Spanish that everything would be fine and that she should trust in God.

“We started praying because we didn’t know if we were going to get out alive or not,” said Michelle Moncada, a freshman art student.

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

Abner held the hand of a boy who was praying.

“I just tried to think of something nice and not something negative,” she said.

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

Shannon Callahan, Ferrell’s mother, said her daughter sent her a photo of herself barricaded under a table. “When the texts stopped, I was 100 percent worried.”

During the evacuation, King saw the body of a student lying on the ground. “They were blocking the body,” King said.

Abner also saw a female student who appeared to have been shot in the shoulder, leaning against a wall while emergency personnel tended to her.

Another student was lying on the floor with her eyes covered, Abner said: “I don’t know if she was dead or shot or something, or if she was just processing it.”

Reed saw a gun and blood on the floor.

As they fled, the students left behind their school bags, phones and even shoes. Ferrell lost her rainbow Crocs and later had to walk the long way to her mother’s car in her socks.

The students gathered in the football stadium cried and crowded together.

“Everyone is crying, everyone is running around,” Moncada said. “They’re all running around trying to see who’s OK and who’s not.”

In the early afternoon, parents began to send the students home.

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

“You could hear gunshots echoing throughout the school,” Culver said. “And you wonder which one of 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.