WINDER, Ga. − This small town still rocked by last week’s deadly school shooting mourned its dead at church services Sunday while a Georgia senator chided the gun lobby for enriching itself “with the blood of our children.”
Congregants filtered through the stained glass doors of Saints Constantine and Helen Romanian Orthodox Church on Sunday morning to pray and mourn Romania native Cristina Irimie, a beloved church member and 53-year-old math teacher at Apalachee High School, where she was gunned down Wednesday.
Also killed were Richard Aspinwall, 39, a fellow math teacher and football coach, and 14-year-old students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo. Eight students and a teacher were wounded.
Student Colt Gray, 14, is charged with four counts of felony murder and is being held without bond.
On Sunday, a white-robed priest at Irimie’s church chanted prayers in Romanian beneath a golden archway adorned with a cross. Attendees in traditional Romanian dress – women in white embroidered blouses and some men in broad leather belts – stood at the pews with bowed heads.
People exchanged quiet greetings outside the church doors as women pulled on their headscarves. Several candles burned in a small fireplace next to the entryway.
Georgia’s Romanian community mourns:Teacher was killed in Apalachee shooting
Teacher’s death shakes 2 churches
Irimie, who moved to the U.S. from Romania more than two decades ago with her husband, Dorin, was a treasured part of the area’s Romanian community, Nicolae Clempus, pastor of Saint Mary Romanian Orthodox Church, Saints Constantine and Helen’s sister church, previously told USA TODAY. The shooting and Irimie’s loss had shaken both churches, about 10 miles and 30 miles from the high school, respectively.
“We are united in our grief,” Clempus said. “We can go through this by remembering Cristina, by being close to her family, but also healing in time.”
Sen. Warnock: We can do better than this
During an appearance on NBC News’ Meet the Press, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., said the shooting in Winder shows “we’re all sitting ducks.”
“We can do better than this,” he said. “This is a tragic form of American exceptionalism. This doesn’t happen all over the world.’
In no other country that is not at war do you see such routine, random violence. It has become a tragic part of the “everyday lives of people,” Warnock said.
Gray’s father, Colin, accused of gifting or providing access to an assault rifle to his son, has been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children.
“Fourteen-year-olds don’t need AR-15s,” Warnock said. “We need to get these military-style weapons off the streets.”
Why Congress cannot pass comprehensive gun reform? Warnock said politicians “beholden” to gun lobbyists are to blame.
“The gun lobby lines its pockets with the blood of our children,” he said.
Mother of Georgia shooting suspect:Mom said she called school before attack, report says
Shooter’s mother called school minutes before assault
The mother of the 14-year-old boy charged with killing the four people at the high school said she alerted the school counselor the morning of the shooting that there was an “extreme emergency” and her son needed to be found, the Washington Post reported Saturday. The call log obtained by the Post shows Marcee Gray, the suspect’s mother, made a 10-minute phone call to the school about half an hour before the shooting is believed to have started.
“I was the one that notified the school counselor at the high school,” Gray said in a text message to her sister, Annie Brown, according to a screenshot of the conversation obtained by the Post. “I told them it was an extreme emergency and for them to go immediately and find (my son) to check on him.”
Brown declined to elaborate what prompted Gray to warn the school, but Charles Polhamus, the suspect’s grandfather, told the New York Post Saturday that Gray rushed to Winder, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, after getting a text message from her son that read “I’m sorry, mom.”
Marcee Gray in the last two years was arrested on multiple charges including suspicion of possessing controlled substances including fentanyl and pain killers, according to court documents filed in Barrow County. Gray ultimately pleaded guilty to using a license plate to conceal identity, criminal damage to property in the second degree and criminal trespass/family violence.
− N’dea Yancey-Bragg
