In the aftermath of a school shooting in Georgia that killed four people and left nine others injured, American federal investigators said they interviewed the 14-year-old suspected gunman in 2023 after he allegedly made violent threats online.
Atlanta’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said its National Threat Operations Center was alerted to online threats about committing a school shooting in May 2023. The posts were allegedly made by the 14-year-old accused of storming Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., on Wednesday.
In an FBI statement released later that evening, officials said officers from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office interviewed the suspect, then 13 years old, and his father within 24 hours of the posts being made last year. The threats, which did not specify a location or time, included photos of guns.
The suspect’s father told authorities he owned hunting rifles and stored them inside the home, but maintained his son did not have unsupervised access to the weapons. The teenager denied posting the threats of a school shooting online.
“At that time, there was no probable cause for arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action on the local, state, or federal levels,” the FBI statement reads.
Jackson County police notified local schools for continued monitoring of the subject, officials said.
FBI agents responded to the shooting at Apalachee High School on Wednesday and said they assisted local and state law enforcement officers. The federal agency promised to provide all available resources “to seek justice and bring closure for the victims and their families.”
The 14-year-old is accused of using a military-style rifle to open fire inside Apalachee High School, about an hour’s drive from Atlanta.
Students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and staff members Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, were killed in the shooting. The nine others left injured, eight students and one instructor, are expected to make a full recovery.
Officials are currently investigating to determine a motive and how the teenage boy obtained the firearm. The suspect, a student at the school, surrendered following the attack and was taken into custody.
He will be charged and tried as an adult, authorities said. He is being held at the Gainesville Regional Youth Detention Center.
A vigil for the victims was held on Wednesday in Winder.
Schools in Barrow County will be closed for the rest of the week as they co-operate with investigators. Grief counselling will be available to students.
The shooting at Apalachee High School was the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Conn., Parkland, Fla., and Uvalde, Texas.
The classroom killings have set off fervent debates about gun control and frayed the nerves of parents whose children are growing up accustomed to active shooter drills in classrooms. Little has been done to move the needle on national gun laws.
Before Wednesday, at least 127 people had died in 29 mass killings in the U.S. so far this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. (A mass killing is quantified as an incident in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer.)
— With files from The Associated Press