ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Four people are dead and nine injured after a high-school shooting this morning in Winder, Ga. That's a city about an hour away from Atlanta. A 14-year-old student is in custody, and we've learned tonight that law enforcement had been warned about him previously. Rahul Bali of member station WABE in Atlanta has been following the latest developments. Hi there.
RAHUL BALI, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Local authorities have identified the suspect, but NPR is not naming the 14-year-old. What more can you tell us about the gunman and law enforcement's previous interaction with him that we're just learning about?
BALI: So authorities say the alleged gunman is a 14-year-old boy who is a student at Apalachee High School in Winder. Late tonight, the Atlanta office of the FBI revealed that, in May of last year, a national hotline received several anonymous tips about online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location and time. The FBI says those threats had contained images of guns. In 24 hours, the agency was able to trace that online post to Georgia and relay that information to the Jackson County Sheriff's Office. Jackson neighbors Barrow County, where today's shooting happened. The agency says the sheriff's office located a possible suspect, a 13-year-old, who was then interviewed along with his father.
SHAPIRO: And what did they learn in the interview?
BALI: So according to the FBI, the father told deputies that they had hunting guns in the house. The boy did not have unsupervised access to them and that they claimed that, you know, he was not the one making the online threats. The FBI says the sheriff's office was - alerted local schools to continue monitoring him but that they had no probable cause to make an arrest or take any additional law enforcement action. Tonight, the FBI confirms that the 13-year-old boy from last year is the same person who is in custody for the killings today in Barrow County.
SHAPIRO: So that's what happened last year. Tell us more about how today played out.
BALI: So the way today played out was the first calls to law enforcement, Ari, came in around 10:20 this morning - reports of an active shooter at Apalachee High School. That was about two hours...
SHAPIRO: I'm not sure if Rahul's line has dropped. I'm...
BALI: ...Including two school...
SHAPIRO: Sorry, you cut out...
BALI: Including two school-based officers...
SHAPIRO: ...For a minute there, but you're back. Go ahead. Yeah.
BALI: Sorry about that, Ari. So that was two hours into the school day. Officers responded immediately, including two school-based school resource officers. Here's Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JUD SMITH: Our school resource officer engaged him, and the shooter quickly realized that if he did not give up, that it would end with an OIS - or an officer-involved shooting. He gave up, got on the ground, and the deputy took him into custody.
BALI: So of the four people who were killed, two were 14-year-old students, and two were teachers. Nine people were injured. They were taken to different local hospitals. We are hearing tonight that all nine are expected to live.
SHAPIRO: Well, just in our last 30 seconds here, so...
BALI: Oh. And, Ari, one other thing I should point out - tomorrow...
SHAPIRO: Yeah. Go ahead.
BALI: Go ahead. The other thing I wanted to point out is tomorrow, at the Georgia State Capitol, lawmakers were - had already been scheduled to hold a hearing on safe firearm storage. We're expecting that hearing to get a lot more interest tomorrow.
SHAPIRO: Absolutely, and we're grateful that you will be there covering it. That's Rahul Bali of member station WABE in Atlanta. Thank you for your reporting tonight on this school shooting.
BALI: No problem. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
