Apalachee High shooting: How the terror unfolded

WINDER, Ga. - When a shooting rampage began Wednesday morning at Apalachee High School, the words “hard lockdown” appeared on a screen in junior Layla Ferrell’s health class and lights began flashing.

That’s how students in her class knew something was wrong.

In other classrooms, students heard the gunshots that left four people dead – two students and two teachers – and injured at least nine others.

Ferrell and her frightened classmates piled desks and chairs in front of the door to create a barricade, she recalled.

Lyela Sayarath, 16, said she was sitting beside Gray in their algebra class shortly before the shooting.

She said Gray left the class just before the shooting, then returned and knocked on the door, which had locked automatically.

“So, I think he wanted to come to us first,” she said.

Sayarath said a student was about to let Gray back in the classroom, but then backed away.

“I think she saw him or maybe somebody said something, but I’m pretty sure she saw that he had a gun,” she said. “I just , like, the moment that it happened, he was at the door and they – I knew they were looking for him already – but he was at the door and they almost let him in until they backed up and then he turned away, and that’s when you hear, like, the first rounds of fire.”

She said Gray turned to classroom next door, “to what would have been my right, and he just starts to shoot.”

PHOTO GALLERY | THE VICTIMS:

“I already kind of had a feeling it was going to happen, it was him, but as soon as they didn’t let him in and you hear the gunshots, you kind of like, know,” she said.

Sayarath said the students dropped to the floor and “piled on top of each other,” trying to get to a corner.

“The teacher turned off the lights, but we all just kind of piled together and like, I pushed desks in front of us,” she said. “I was just telling people, like, ‘Oh, push desks in front of you, block in front of you, get low,’ things like that.”

She said it took “maybe a couple minutes” from the first gunshots to the hard lockdown alert.

It’s unclear how the gun got into the school. The student code of conduct says the school has the ability to conduct screening with handheld metal detectors.

However, students said metal detectors aren’t used at the school.

Officials say they were notified of the shooting via the Centegix emergency alert system. A staff member pressed the button on their ID card and alerted law enforcement.

Here at home, schools in McDuffie counties use Centegix, and Columbia County uses a similar system.

Schools in Barrow County will stay closed for the rest of the week, and even Atlanta schools an hour away beefed up security out of an abundance of caution.

By the numbers

The Gun Violence Archive said that in Georgia schools since 2022, there have been:

• 97 gun incidents
• Five gun fatalities
• 17 gun injuries
• 72 arrests for gun incidents

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