U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Wednesday that federal law enforcement officials are on the scene and ready to assist local authorities following a high school shooting in Georgia that left at least four dead and nine injured.
Both the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) are currently on the scene working with local, state, and federal law enforcement officials, he added.
Later on Wednesday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation confirmed that at least four people died and nine were injured in the shooting. A suspect, who has not been identified, has been taken into custody.
The incident occurred at Apalachee High School in Barrow County in Winder, some 50 miles northeast of Atlanta. It prompted a lockdown that caused students and others to shelter at the school’s football stadium.
The attorney general said he is “devastated for the families who have been affected by this terrible tragedy.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray told CNN that agents are on the scene.
“Our hearts go out to the victims and community and all those affected by this awful, awful act,” he said.
Neither official provided any more details about the shooting.
Apalachee High School has about 1,900 students, according to records from Georgia education officials. It became Barrow County’s second-largest public high school when it opened in 2000, according to the Barrow County School System. It’s named after the Apalachee River on the southern edge of Barrow County.
The shooting had reverberations in Atlanta, where patrols of schools in that city were beefed up, authorities said. More patrols of Atlanta schools would be done “for the rest of the day out of an abundance of caution,” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said.
At a news conference on Wednesday afternoon, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said that schools near Apalachee High School were placed on a soft lockdown after the shooting was reported. He also said the investigation is “very active.”
“We’re in the process of reunifying our students with their parents,” Smith told reporters. “Obviously, that’s chaotic, but we want to be respectful of them and their privacy as well.”
The White House said in a statement that President Joe Biden has been briefed by Homeland Security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall about the shooting and that the administration will coordinate with federal, state, and local officials as it receives more information.
He also wants a bill to regulate magazines that hold 11 rounds or more and that require the “safe storage of firearms, enact universal background checks, and end immunity for gun manufacturers,” his statement adds.
“These measures will not bring those who were tragically killed today back, but it will help prevent more tragic gun violence from ripping more families apart,” Biden said.
Details about the suspect and what kind of firearm was used were not immediately provided by law enforcement officials.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, said the shooting was a “senseless tragedy” because “parents have to send their children to school worried about whether or not their child will come home alive.”
Speaking at an event in New Hampshire, she called to end the “epidemic of gun violence” in the United States.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she said.
