Refer Report

CNN and other broadcasters reported that at least four people were killed and nine others were injured in a shooting incident that occurred at a high school outside Atlanta, Georgia, on the 4th (local time). The shooting incident that occurred early in the school year in Georgia, a key battleground state for the November presidential election, is expected to resurface as a presidential election issue.

A shooting at Appalachian High School in Winder, Georgia, an hour’s drive from Atlanta, killed four people, including two 14-year-old students and two math teachers, and wounded nine others, Georgia investigators said.

The shooting suspect, identified as 14-year-old Colt Gray, was arrested at the scene, Barrow County Sheriff Judd Smith said in a news conference. Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hodge also said Gray was in possession of an AR-15 rifle and that the investigation into how he was able to bring a firearm into the school is continuing.

Gray was investigated by law enforcement last year after he and his father threatened to carry out a school shooting at an unspecified location and time online, but was not arrested due to insufficient evidence, CNN reported. Investigators are expected to charge the suspect with murder as an adult.

Students who were at Appalachian High School at the time of the incident were evacuated. The students were shocked and terrified by the school shooting incident that occurred less than a month after the new semester began, according to American media. The students immediately fell to the floor of the classroom or hid in a corner after hearing the gunshots, and then fled to the football field on campus and were reunited with their parents who were anxiously waiting for their children, the New York Times reported.

This incident is expected to be recorded as the worst school shooting in Georgia. CNN reported that it is the 45th school shooting this year. It is also reported that there were threatening phone calls to five other schools in Georgia, including this school, saying there would be shootings.

The White House said President Joe Biden had been briefed on the incident. In a statement, Biden said, “This cannot continue to be the norm,” and urged Congress to act to ban the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, strengthen background checks for gun buyers, and eliminate immunity for gun manufacturers.

Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris also said at a campaign rally in New Hampshire on the same day, “It’s absolutely outrageous that parents have to send their children to school every day and worry if their children are going to come home alive,” adding, “We have to end this epidemic of gun violence once and for all.”

Source: Korean