Officials say the 14-year-old student suspected in the Georgia school shooting that left 4 people dead will be arrested tonight

The 14-year-old suspect in the deadly mass shooting at a high school in Winder, Georgia, will be arrested Wednesday night, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said at a news conference that evening.

Colt Gray is charged with murder in connection with the deaths of two teachers and two students at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, authorities said.

According to Hosey, the deceased victims were 14-year-old Mason Schermerhorn, 14-year-old Christian Angulo, Richard Aspinwall (39) and Christina Irimie (53). The school's website shows that the two adults were both math teachers and Aspinwall was also an assistant football coach.

Gray is a student at Apalachee High School and will be treated as an adult as he progresses through the jurisdiction, Hosey said at an earlier news conference.

Nine other victims – eight students and a teacher – were taken to hospitals following the shooting Wednesday morning, the GBI said.

Hosey said the weapon was an AR platform weapon, while a law enforcement official previously told CNN it was an AR-15 style weapon.

The shooting sent students and teachers scrambling for cover, while schools across the country were locked down and parents desperately searched for information.

During the shooting, 14-year-old Macey Right was texting her mother, saying she heard gunshots and asking her mother to pick her up. Right and her friends were holding hands and praying in her classroom, she said. They were interrupted moments later by banging and yelling, according to Macey.

“I heard gunshots outside my classroom and people screaming, people begging not to be shot, and then people sitting next to me shaking and crying,” Macey said.

Follow live updates: Police respond to reported shooting at Georgia high school

Authorities spoke to the suspect and his father last year

The suspect was questioned by local police in May 2023 after the FBI received “multiple anonymous tips about online threats to commit a school shooting at an unknown location and time,” according to a joint declaration from the FBI office in Atlanta and the Jackson County Sheriff's Office.

The online threats contained photos of weapons, the statement said.

“The father stated that he had hunting rifles in the house, but the perpetrator had none
unsupervised access to it,” the statement said. “The perpetrator denied making the threats online.”

The FBI said there was no sufficient cause for an arrest at the time.

Wednesday's shooting is the deadliest of the 45 school shootings this calendar year, according to a CNN analysis. It is one of 11 school shootings with four or more fatalities since 2008, when CNN first began tracking school shootings.

Authorities said the first report of an active shooter came in at 10:20 a.m. ET. A security officer assigned to Apalachee High School confronted the shooter, who fell to the ground and was taken into custody, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told reporters.

Witness sat next to suspected shooter

Lyela Sayarath, 16, told CNN that the suspected shooter sat next to her in algebra class.

She said he left class early around 9:45 a.m. but didn't take a bathroom pass. She thought he might be skipping class.

Towards the end of class, someone asked her teacher over the PA system to check his email, she said.

Soon after, Gray was standing outside the closed classroom door, Lyela said. Another student who was walking toward the door jumped back when she saw he had a gun.

“I guess he realized we weren't going to let him in,” Lyela said. “And I guess the door to the classroom next door was open, so I think he just started shooting in the classroom.”

She told CNN that she first heard a volley of gunshots – maybe 10 to 15 shots – and then “just one after another.”

The students dropped to the floor and crawled into the corner, Lyela said.

“It seemed like he didn't plan it very well or that he wasn't very good with the gun because he didn't try to shoot at our door. When he saw he couldn't get into our room, he just went to the next one.”

Latest developments

• The high school had previously received a telephone threat, several law enforcement officials told CNN. The call on Wednesday morning warned that there would be shootings at five schools, and that Apalachee would be the first. It is not known who made the call.

• Investigators have spoken to the suspected shooter and contacted his family, Smith said.

• It was not immediately known whether the attacker had any connection to his victims, the sheriff said, although officials stressed that will be part of the investigation.

• Schools in Barrow County will remain closed for the rest of the week.

• According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been at least 385 mass shootings in the United States so far this year. Like CNN, the Archive defines mass shootings as those in which four or more victims are shot. That's an average of more than 1.5 mass shootings per day.

Student wrote to her mother: “I’m scared”

Erin Clark was at work Wednesday morning when she received a series of text messages from her son, a 12th-grader attending classes at Apalachee High School.

“School shooting.”

“I’m scared,” he wrote.

“Please.” “I’m not kidding,” came the flood of messages.

“I'm leaving work,” Clark replied. “I love you,” her son Ethan Haney, 17, wrote back.

“I love you too, baby,” his mother wrote before racing off to high school.

Clark told CNN her son heard eight or nine gunshots before he closed his classroom door and, with the help of another classmate, moved chairs and tables to block the door.

Clark told CNN she was “absolutely terrified” when she read her son's messages. “I just kept praying that he would stay safe,” she said.

Schools in the district were cordoned off

With emergency responders arriving from multiple counties, video from outside the school showed at least five ambulances and a large police presence on campus, as well as at least one rescue helicopter transporting a patient from the scene.

On the football field, where authorities had gathered the students, people bowed their heads and formed a prayer circle in the end zone, standing on the letters for “Apalachee” as their classmates streamed around the field.

According to sources, all schools in the Barrow County school system, including the high school, have been placed on lockdown and police have been dispatched to all high schools in the county out of an abundance of caution, but there are no reports of any other incidents or crime scenes.

Some of the seriously injured were transported by helicopter, and additional helicopters are on standby.

Trauma center in Atlanta and other hospitals admit patients

Grady Health System – a Level 1 trauma center in Atlanta, about an hour's drive from Winder – admitted a victim with gunshot wounds in the incident who was brought in by helicopter, a hospital spokesperson told CNN.

Earlier, a source familiar with the situation who was not authorized to speak to the media told CNN that Piedmont Athens Regional Hospital in northern Georgia had admitted two victims of the shooting. The source said one victim was an adult with a gunshot wound to the abdomen and was undergoing surgery, and another was a minor with unspecified injuries.

Three gunshot victims were taken to area hospitals following the shooting, according to a hospital official, and five other patients reported to the hospital with symptoms of a panic attack.

Two gunshot victims were taken to Northeast Georgia Medical Center Barrow with non-life-threatening injuries, said Layne Saliba, spokeswoman for Northeast Georgia Health System. Four other patients came in with symptoms suggestive of panic attacks.

Another gunshot victim was taken to Northeast Georgia Medical Center Gainesville with non-life-threatening injuries, Saliba said, and another patient was taken to Northeast Georgia Medical Center Braselton with symptoms of a panic attack.

Georgia governor prays and says he can send funds

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has directed all available state resources to assist on the ground, he said in a statement on social media. The governor urged “all Georgians to join my family in praying for the safety of those in our classrooms, both in Barrow County and across the state.”

The White House said President Joe Biden had been briefed on the incident and federal assistance had been offered to state and local authorities.

“His administration will continue to coordinate with federal, state and local authorities as we receive more information,” the White House said in a statement.

Attorney General Merrick Garland also said the U.S. Department of Justice was “ready” to help the community following the shooting.

“We are still gathering information, but the FBI and ATF are on the ground working with state, local and federal partners,” Garland said at a meeting of the Justice Department's Election Threats Task Force.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Winder had a population of about 18,338 at the time of the 2020 census. The Barrow County School System is the 24th largest school district in the state, according to the district's website. It serves about 15,340 students, 1,932 of whom are enrolled at Apalachee High School.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

CNN's Isabel Rosales reported from Winder, while Nick Valencia reported from Atlanta. CNN's John Miller and Dakin Andone reported from New York. Taylor Galgano, Jaide Timm-Garcia, Holly Yan, Steve Almasy, Josh Campbell, Maureen Chowdhury, Amy O'Kruk, Alex Leeds Matthews, Shawn Nottingham, Rebekah Riess, Devan Cole, Hannah Rabinowitz and Mark Morales contributed to this report.

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