A 14-year-old boy is to be charged with murder after four people were killed and nine injured in a shooting at a Georgia high school on Wednesday.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said those killed were two pupils and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Winder, Barrow County.
The boy, named as Colt Gray, a pupil, was arrested by two officers on the school campus and was in custody, a spokesman said. He will be charged as an adult.
Local sheriff Jud Smith described the attack as “pure evil”.
Officers first recieved reports of a shooting at the school of around 1,900 pupils around 10:20 local time (13:20BST).
“Within minutes law enforcement was on scene, as well as two school resource officers assigned to the school who immediately encountered the subject,” the sheriff said in a news conference.
“The subject immediately surrendered. He gave up, got on the ground. And the officers took him into custody,” he continued.
Officials said the suspect is a student at the school. They said no motive had been identified and “we don’t know of any targets at this point”.
They have not said what type of weapon was used, or how many bullets were fired.
“This is going to take multiple days for us to get answers as to what happened and why this happened,” Sheriff Smith said.
Dozens of police officers swiftly responded to the school, which was placed on lockdown and cleared, with pupils later released to their families.
Alexsandra Romero, a second year pupil, said she was sitting in classroom when someone came barging in and yelled at students, warning them to get down.
“I can just remember my hands were shaking,” she told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “I felt bad because everybody was crying, everybody was trying to find their siblings.
“I can still picture everything, like the blood, the shouting…”
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said on Twitter/X that he was “praying for the safety of those in our classrooms” and that he was directing “all available state resources”.
In a statement, President Biden said he and First Lady Jill Biden were “mourning the deaths of those whose lives were cut short due to more senseless gun violence”.
“What should have been a joyous back-to-school season in Winder, Georgia, has now turned into another horrific reminder of how gun violence continues to tear our communities apart,” he said.
Speaking at a campaign rally in New Hampshire, Vice-President Kamala Harris called the shooting “a senseless tragedy”.
“It’s just outrageous that every day in our country… that parents have to send their children to school worried about whether their child will come home alive.
“It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland, the top law enforcement official in the US, said federal agents were aiding the investigation. “I’m devastated for the families who have been affected by this terrible tragedy,” he said.
