Deyonna Lee thought it was only a drill when the intercom system at Apalachee High School announced that there was a lockdown.
And then her brother, a freshman, texted her: “There’s an intruder, there’s a shooter.”
The senior, along with her friends and about 300 other people, attended a Wednesday night vigil at Jug Tavern Park, which is about 5 miles from the high school where four people were killed and nine others were injured during a shooting earlier in the day.
Several law enforcement agencies responded to the Barrow County high school around 10:20 a.m. after reports of an active shooter. The suspect was later identified as 14-year-old Colt Gray, an Apalachee High student who has been charged with murder, officials said.
Lee, 17, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that her younger brother witnessed the shooting and gave statements to the GBI and FBI. She said her brother witnessed a classmate get shot but did not know him personally. Lee was in a cooking class when the shooting occurred and did not see any gunfire.
“I just feel like he’s very traumatized. Being that it’s his first year in high school and all that. It is very traumatizing,” Lee said about her brother.
Jennifer Olivo’s daughter is only in middle school, but she attended the vigil in support of several friends whose children attend Apalachee High. As information was unfolding, Olivo explained that she was panicking and hoping no one she knew personally was injured.
Olivo told the AJC that her friend’s daughter, who she did not want to identify for safety reasons, heard several gunshots and then saw a teacher’s body. She explained that the student had just returned from the bathroom when her teacher heard some sort of commotion coming from the lockers and went to investigate.
The teacher was shot right in front of the classroom’s door, leaving it wide open, Olivo recounted about what she was told by the student. That’s when another student quickly stepped in.
“He went and he pulled the teacher’s body in the room, closed the door, and then he took his shirt off and covered the teacher’s face, and then he started putting desks in front of the door. And he basically saved them,” she said.
Late Wednesday, the GBI identified the victims as teachers Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo.
Others at Wednesday’s vigil were students from nearby schools whose friends attend Apalachee High. They were left in a state of shock as they anxiously stared at their phones for updates from their friends.
Matthew Olaires, 18, attends Winder-Barrow High School but did not go to school Wednesday. He said he was stunned to hear about the shooting from a friend at Apalachee High, who was already being escorted to the school’s football field by the time he texted Olaires.
“It’s just shocking that (the suspect is) so young and he did this kind of thing,” Olaires said, adding that Barrow is the last county where he would have anticipated this level of violence.
Makayla Simmons, 18, graduated from Winder-Barrow High but attended Apalachee High from ninth to 11th grade. She said many of her friends still attend Apalachee High and began texting in a group chat when the school was put on lockdown. And then she learned there was a shooter.
She explained that for some time her friends stopped texting her, and that’s when the panic set in. She has since been able to connect with her friends and described their reunion as a relief.
While holding lit candles, and before some students let go of star-shaped gold and blue balloons, those at the vigil bowed their heads as Rev. Geoffrey Murphy from Winder First United Methodist Church prayed for those impacted by the shooting and the shooter himself. He explained that four families already know what they will mourn, but that nine others remain anxious, unknowing of what the future may bring.
“Today has been a terrible day of evil, a day where evil has reared its head and brought casualty into our world,” he prayed. “And so let us pray, the prayer that good through comfort and mercy might find its way into the lives of all who have been affected and impacted today.”
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