At least four people were killed and nine injured Wednesday after shootings at a high school in the US state of Georgia, authorities said, and a suspect has been arrested.
“Four dead. Nine people were sent to various hospitals with injuries. The suspect is in custody and alive,” the Georgian Bureau of Investigation said on the social network X.
Numerous emergency vehicles and a large police force were dispatched to the scene at Apalachee High School in the town of Winder, some 70 kilometres northeast of Atlanta.
“We cannot allow this to become the norm,” President Joe Biden said in a statement, again calling for a ban on assault rifles.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland called it a “terrible tragedy” at a news conference.
According to CNN, the shooter is a 14-year-old boy.
– Confinement and screams –
The school was initially placed on lockdown, Fox 5 Atlanta reported.
The injured were being treated on site by rescuers, the channel said, based on images taken from a helicopter.
Local police, Georgia state police and federal police are responding, authorities said.
The students were then evacuated from the school, or gathered on the site of a sports field, according to other aerial images broadcast by media.
“My teacher opened the door (to the classroom) to see what was happening. Then another teacher came running and told her to close the door because there was a shooter,” said a 17-year-old student, Sergio Caldera, quoted by ABC.
With the door locked, he and his comrades then took refuge at the back of the room, from where they heard screams ringing out from outside.
The United States is the only developed country in the world to be regularly plagued by school shootings, a scourge fueled by the spread of individual weapons.
In May 2022, 19 children and two teachers were victims of a horrific massacre at their school in Uvalde, Texas, committed by an 18-year-old man using a legally purchased assault rifle.
US President Joe Biden has repeatedly denounced the “epidemic” of gun violence and regularly urged Congress to act.
The number of victims must now be particularly high or the circumstances particularly striking for shootings to generate national media interest.
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