(Sierra Pape)

On the morning of Sept. 4, 14-year-old Colt Gray opened fire at Apalachee High School, killing two teachers and two students. In the wake, over 200 shooting threats have been made to schools across Georgia.

Apalachee senior Brylie Adams was in her first period class, in a hallway adjacent to where the shooting took place, when the security alarm started.

“It was a silent alarm, but we could hear gunshots,” Adams said. “We weren’t sure what they were, and we were all rushed into the corner. I was just frozen; I was more focused on keeping other people calm so that we stayed quiet.”

Adams said she never expected a shooting in her own school. Apalachee serves communities in Barrow County, with a population of 19,000, about 40 miles east of Atlanta.

“I knew it was a possibility, but I never thought it would happen here,” Adams said. “The shock didn’t hit me until I got home and all my aunts and uncles came to see me. I just started breaking down crying.”

Apalachee senior Danieo Firment was in Spanish class, in the same hallway as Adams, when the lockdown began.

“My teacher kept telling us it was a drill,” Firment said. “And then we started hearing banging, and I quickly realized it was not a drill.”

Barrow County prosecutors said Gray committed the deadliest U.S. school shooting since the March 2023 shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, and the 45th school shooting this year. Firment described the chaotic scene in the moment and the fear among peers.

“It sounded like he was right outside, so I hid behind this couch in the corner,” Firment said. “We thought we were going to die because we heard shouting. We heard shouting, screaming and banging, and our door was about to shake. Once we got to the stadium, we saw so many shaking, rattled people.”

In the days following the shooting, the Winder community held two vigils to memorialize the four dead. Additionally, mental health resources have been made available  for students, teachers and community members affected.

“When you go out with your friends, you have a closer bond with everybody you were with that day,” Firment said. “If I see somebody from my school, even if I don’t even know them, or they’re just acquaintances, it seems like we’re way closer now.”

Midtown senior Hilary Taylor believes there should be ample mental health services for students affected and students across Georgia at this time.

“This is so incredibly personal,” Taylor said. “My anxiety levels have definitely been higher since, and I just cannot imagine being a student who has lived through something like this.”

All schools in the Barrow County School system were on hard lockdown the entire school day of Sept. 4 and closed until Sept. 9. Apalachee is closed until Sept. 23. 

Taylor said it was scary to see the news alert while in school, especially without access to phones due to the Yondr pouch system at Midtown, which requires all students to place their phones and other small personal electronic devices (PEDs), including smartwatches, in pouches that are locked throughout the day.

“It definitely gave me anxiety to hear all this information and not have access to my phone,” Taylor said. “I would really like to be able to communicate with my family in a situation like this. My parents aren’t tech-savvy, so Schoology just doesn’t work.”

Midtown 2023 graduate Jeffrey Hallet was president of Midtown’s chapter of March for Our Lives in the 2021-22 school year and now works for nonprofit organization Georgia Majority for Gun Safety. He said it was terrifying to hear there was a shooting near Atlanta.

“I’m at college, and all I saw was, ‘School Shooting in Atlanta,’” Hallet said. “I just remember the blood draining from my face, thinking for a second that it could be in Midtown [where my siblings go]. I can’t even imagine being in a school in Georgia that day.”

In the past week, juniors Mariam Darb, Julia Barton, and Kate Krugman have revamped Midtown’s chapter of March for Our Lives after a two-year hiatus. 

The Midtown MFOL chapter is leading a school walkout in the school stadium on Friday, Sept. 20, participating in the state-wide Georgia MFOL walkout. The school has excused all students from their 2B period to attend. Krugman believes there has been a wave of awareness and engagement among students with gun violence issues since Sept. 4.

“Apalachee is so close to home,” Krugman said. “It’s so different from when you normally see things like this on the news, and it has made a lot of people pay attention. It’s less than an hour away. So, many people have been talking to us about how to get involved, that they are coming to the protest and that they care about this.” 

Adams said that after the shooting, Apalachee security measures should be permanently heightened. Barrow County Schools do not currently have metal detectors in any school entrances, but they do allow random searches of book bags and other school property.

“I’m going to go off on something my sister has been saying,” Adams said. “I think we need to have different backpack policies, enforcing clear backpacks now. Also, I think we possibly need metal detectors.” 

APS has implemented metal detectors in all high population middle and high schools, APS Police Chief Ronald Applin said. Junior Avery Frank said that these systems have made her feel more comfortable when she is in school.

“Every morning, you think the metal detectors are a little annoying as you are entering the school,” Frank said. “But since [the shooting], it makes you appreciate it. Because you know, if they did find something, it would be confiscated.”

State Sen. Clint Dixon introduced a bill in November 2023 that would offer teachers a stipend of $10,000 to teachers if they voluntarily take firearms courses and carry guns in school. Firment said he would feel safer at school if teachers were allowed to be armed on school grounds. 

“This might be a little controversial, but I feel like if we could give a gun to a teacher, completely undisclosed, the response maybe could be quicker [in an active shooter situation],” Firment said. “But, I feel like our resource officers responded really well and fast.” 

At Apalachee’s vigil on Sept. 6, Georgia District 57 Representative Micah Gravley praised the police response of student resource officers and Barrow County Police at the school. 

“This will be an example across this country of how people reacted in a time of need,” Gravley said to the crowd of over 1,000 people. “Our law enforcement and resource officers came together to stop this heinous murder in a matter of six minutes. But, still, in six minutes, we lost four people.”

Applin said APSPD is currently analyzing police response at Apalachee to reassess its own procedures.

“When something like this happens, it does two things for us,” Applin said. “It lets us know if we are doing things we should be doing. It also lets us know if we need to be doing things differently, and I have not seen many things we need to do differently. The main exception is making sure humans are doing what they need to do, and that means [not] propping doors open, using the ‘See Something, Say Something’ system and not posting threats on social media.”

The strategic crisis alert system implemented at Apalachee has also been implemented throughout APS. In this system, with a panic button on their nametag, teachers, administrators and other school employees can summon immediate help from school resource officers (SROs) and local police. 

If teachers press the wearable crisis alert buttons three times, it creates a staff alert, which alerts critical administrators. If teachers press the button ten times, it notifies dispatch and APD.

“We’ve been looking into the [panic button system] for a while now, but the cost was prohibitive,” Applin said. “Earlier this year, we were able to use the governor’s school safety grant, and we were able to get one for every school in the system.”

Collins believes that for security, along with teacher and student mental health, everyone needs to believe in and follow the systems in place at Midtown. 

“It takes trusting our plans,” Collins said. “We have metal detectors. We have SROs. We have auto-lock doors. We have people that walk the halls. We are aware of the threats. They are wide-eyed and open to all of us. It is following and trusting the protocol that gives you some peace in these times.”

All high-population middle and high schools in APS have metal detectors to scan all students and staff when they arrive at school, including Midtown. Krugman believes the school is making an active effort to address the possibility of gun presence on campus.

“Dr. Bockman (Principal Dr. Betsy Bockman) is doing all she can, truly, because she has kids to protect in this school, too,” Krugman said. “But, they can only do so much. We, as a club, are advocating for legislators to support gun control; we will call our legislators, host walkouts and protests — whatever we need to do to show that this is what youth need.”

Midtown 2024 graduate Delia Schroeder worked for MFOL her senior year. She believes that, for the safety of students, change needs to come from government agencies.

“Shootings are far too common of a thing, and it’s awful that this is something we’ve grown used to,” Schroeder said. “This was the 45th school shooting of the year. There needs to be a change. We need to address firearm regulation, social inequality and mental health if we want to end this epidemic of gun violence.”

Since the shooting at Apalachee, there have been over 200 threats to schools across Georgia. Over 12 students have been arrested in Georgia alone for sending fraudulent threats to school systems. (Sierra Pape)

Since the shooting at Apalachee, there have been over 200 threats to schools across Georgia, and Applin reports over 20 threats to schools within APS.

“Our [APSPD] investigators do a great job of figuring out if these threats are credible or not,” Applin said. “If we run into problems trying to figure that out, we’ll reach out to our partners at GBI and FBI to help. We have had a number of conversations, and they have been able to help us identify a number of threats that were not credible.”

On Sept. 13, APSPD increased security due to an influx of threats against schools throughout the school system.

“With heightened security threats, we are calling on everyone to pay more attention to everything that is going on around them,” Applin said. “We also have APD, Fulton [County Sheriff] and Georgia State Patrol driving through campuses throughout the day for enforcement and security at our schools. We are paying much closer attention and pulling resources from other law enforcement.”

Taylor said the school should take threats seriously, and all students should have unexcused absences in large cases.

“It just takes one person,” Taylor said. “Like [Colt Gray], someone could have something in their backpack or grab it from their car. Even [when] security [is] stronger, there is so much room for error.”

Hallet believes threats cause high levels of stress in students in school throughout the day. 

“The burden of thinking about being in danger throughout the day in school is exhausting,” Hallet said. “Students should not have to live like this, in constant fear of their lives.”

Midtown drama teacher Brooke Collins believes that, while heightened security and awareness about threats is necessary, it should not prompt students and staff to stay home.

“I think we should continue to come [to school] because, unfortunately, it has become a part of [teachers’] jobs,” Collins said. “Whether there’s a threat today or there’s not a threat today, there’s always a threat every day, because it could always happen any day, and it can happen at any time. So, whether there is a threat or not, I will come to school.”

Over 12 students have been arrested in Georgia alone for sending fraudulent threats to school systems. Applin said the APS community should be assured that his department is taking these threats seriously. 

“If we identify someone who is responsible for these threats, we will charge them, at the very least, for terrorist threats,” Applin said. “There are real consequences if you are making a threat. It can be a federal charge on your record forever.”

Contributions by Brennan Fritts