“No students should fear coming to school,” a teacher at Cabell Midland High School said in response to the shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia Wednesday, Sept. 4. 

“It (school) should be a place of safety where they can get an education and enjoy time with friends,” said Lori Terango, who teaches English at Cabell Midland High School.

In the Apalachee High School shooting, a 14-year-old student is accused of killing two fellow students and two teachers. The victims have been identified as Richard Aspinwall, Christina Irimie, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo. Both Aspinwall and Irimie were math teachers at Apalachee High School during the time of the shooting.

Schermerhorn and Angulo were both students at the school. Nine others were injured from gunshot wounds.

Colt Gray, who was arrested for the shooting, also attended the school. Authorities questioned Gray a year prior regarding threats made about shooting up a school on social media. 

Terango said she worries more about student safety than her own; however, she said Cabell County has been working diligently to ensure their schools are safer. This involves installing mantrap doors and extra cameras. Mantrap doors are two sets of doors with a space between them that are meant to provide an additional physical layer of security to a building. 

Similar precautionary measures have been implemented in schools across the country over the years as the rate of such shootings has increased by a factor of 12 in the last 53 years, according to the American College of Surgeons.

Terango also said Cabell Midland practices lock down drills often to ensure students know what to do in the event of a real situation. 

According to law officials in Winder, an anonymous phone call was made the morning of the Apalachee High School shooting that stated there would be multiple shootings across five schools the same day. 

During the phone call, the unnamed caller warned that Apalachee High School would be the first of the five. The school day proceeded as normal despite the warnings. 

Lyela Sayarath, another student at Apalachee High School, said Gray stood up in his second period Algebra 1 class and left the room without saying a word. When he came back to the classroom, he knocked on the door, and a student realized he had brought an assault rifle back with him. This was the beginning of the shooting. 

“I am saddened that what happened in Georgia continues to happen in our schools,” Terango said.

According to BBC, Gray’s father, Colin Gray, purchased him the assault rifle used in the shooting as a Christmas gift last year.     

This fact has caused Colin to be arrested.

Colt Gray is charged with four counts of felony murder, while Colin Gray is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of child endangerment. 

The investigation is ongoing, and both Colt Gray and Colin Gray have not been sentenced yet.

Caden Adkins can be contacted at [email protected].