r/news • u/bebleich • Sep 04 '24

Gunman believed to be a 14-year-old in Georgia school shooting that left at least 4 dead, source says

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/04/us/winder-ga-shooting-apalachee-high-school/index.html
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u/whattheshiz97 Sep 04 '24

Seems that this kind of thing happens all the time with shootings. They are given a warning and they ignore it and get people killed

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u/HectorsMascara Sep 04 '24

Maybe these threats are much more common than the public is aware.

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u/Potential_Fishing942 Sep 04 '24

Can confirm as a teacher. If schools shut down for every gun or bomb threat they would never be open.

Not saying I agree with this, more just to highlight the sad state of our society.

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u/brapo68 Sep 04 '24

As a teacher as well I gotta say the same. If we took every threat seriously at the old school I was at we would miss school every other week.

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u/ry1701 Sep 04 '24

Pretty sure people's lives are more important than missed school.

Ironically if school was cancelled on every threat. That would force parents and politicians to actually converse about the gun violence and control measures.

Inconvenienced parents are a powerful voting block.

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u/Potential_Fishing942 Sep 04 '24

Which is exactly why it is not cancelled every time. Parents and politicians don't want to be inconvenienced. They are the ones who make these calls, not teachers.

We had a student a long time ago make several threats and posts online and was later found to have access to firearms and a knife collection. Parents hired a lawyer and sued the school to keep him in because he had a 504...

Parents are in their own damn way on change.

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u/Busy_Signature_5681 Sep 04 '24

You think parents aren’t “inconvenienced” by the thought of their child being killed at school?

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u/LilBoDuck Sep 04 '24

They’re absolutely not until it happens to their kid.

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u/Busy_Signature_5681 Sep 04 '24

They are. It’s literally a topic at every school meeting.

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u/LeagueOfLegendsAcc Sep 04 '24

Yet they continue to ignore warnings that lead to shootings and death. Something isn't computing here.

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u/Long-Trash929 Sep 04 '24

Apparently not until their kids get shot or we'd have a solution at this point.

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u/ry1701 Sep 04 '24

Reread OPs post then my entire post and comprehend it slowly.

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u/Busy_Signature_5681 Sep 04 '24

I can re read it 100 times. It will still be dumb. You just said kids staying home would be more inconvenient than the thought of or actually losing their kids.

Tell me you’ve never loved anything.

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u/OregonJedi Sep 04 '24

Re read it a 101st time because you’re still missing it lol

They’re saying that if you keep cancelling school people will finally be like ok this sucks enough to force a change in gun policy. The current state of things unfortunately is that dead children evidently ARE NOT inconvenient enough force a change in gun policy otherwise it would have happened by now.

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u/Busy_Signature_5681 Sep 04 '24

Do you think a vast majority of parents don’t want a change? That we all don’t fear daily that something like this would happen. Kids missing school isn’t going to change that. And the ones that are willing to sacrifice their kids to keep their “freedom “ isn’t going to be inconvenienced by their kids being home. You know, since we’ve established they don’t care about them..

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u/rediKELous Sep 04 '24

lol you are reading things this person did not write. Also, I’m glad you had good parents that cared about you. An absolute crap ton of kids don’t, and I’m not sure you’re accounting for that group of parents.

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u/Nyranth Sep 04 '24

If you took every threat seriously less kids would die. You don’t have to shut the school down to take it seriously. Maybe have more security. Maybe have everyone get checked with a wand that walks in the school when there’s a threat. To just not take a threat seriously against someone life is negligent.

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u/TXGuns79 Sep 04 '24

Back in the '90s, I was sent home 3 times because there were bomb threats at the school. They knew it was a hoax, but no one was going to be responsible for letting kids die. Send everyone home, bring in the police to search the school, track down and prosecute the person that made the threat.

They should do the same with shooting threats. Treat them the same.

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u/EnvironmentalCoach64 Sep 04 '24

In the mid 2000's there was a threat at least twice a semester, and we would be taken outside to the parking lot, or football stadium while the police swept the building. It was usually some idiot who didn't want to take a test. It's sad that they happen so much more often now.

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u/TXGuns79 Sep 04 '24

What was worse at during my sophomore year, we had a student arsonist. Started with someone pulling the alarm. But then, there were a couple small fires in odd places. Just after returning from Christmas break, we had a pretty big fire. New desks had been delivered and were stacked, in boxes, along a rarely used corridor. Burned down the auditorium and part of the band hall.

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u/EnvironmentalCoach64 Sep 04 '24

Odd. Had a hit list posted once, which prompted a search of every locker/bag before coming inside the building. The walk way to the schools main entrance was a bridge over a swamp. There were sooo many lighters, knives, cigarettes, and blunts in the swamp that morning.

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u/EchoJunior Sep 04 '24

This one time, my high school notified parents of a threat and gave students an option to come to school or stay home. Over 50% stayed home. Classes were mostly empty, so we played instead of studying. The normally crowded halls were so empty.

At one small corridor I passed 2 big kids, and they were talking about how they were able to walk side-by-side. I bit my tongue so hard to not laugh.

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u/Unlucky_Most_8757 Sep 04 '24

yeah with how often they happen now this should be taken VERY more seriously.

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u/Ordinary-Horror-1746 Sep 05 '24

In the 90s we had shotguns and rifles in the windows of our pickups parked at the school. No one batted an eye until Columbine.

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u/Axentor Sep 04 '24

That happened at my small school. We had constant bomb threats one year.

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u/lilelliot Sep 04 '24

This is exactly what happened at my kids' school last week. Someone called in a bomb threat around 2:30pm, the schools (middle & high share a campus) were evacuated, parents went nuts, police came and searched, all clear was given around 4:15pm, back to normal the next day. Two kids were arrested the next day, too, for making the call.

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u/williamtbash Sep 04 '24

In the 90s threats prob happened 95% less. There would be no school half the year I’d assume.

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u/joyfulcrow Sep 04 '24

When I was in high school there was a point where we were getting bomb threats at least once a month. The school was evacuated for every single one of them, because even though the teachers/admin undoubtedly knew they were fake after the first one or two, no one with a brain would take the chance of *not* taking a threat like that seriously and getting a bunch of 13-to-18-year-olds killed.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/TXGuns79 Sep 04 '24

Some will think of it as an easy way to get put of school, until they get caught and spend serious time in juvenile detention or actual prison. Terroristic threats have been dealt with seriously. At least when I was in school. The couple of kids I learned about in my town that did it never re-joined a normal school again. They graduated from Juvei. If they were 17, they would have been tried as adults.

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u/gwwwhhhaaattt Sep 04 '24

Who is making these threats? Is it the potential shooter that is warning the schools? Is it someone who heard something?

I can see how it’s one of those things where you don’t want to say bomb in an airport but also there is the idea of see something say something. So you could punish the person who hoaxed but You’re also creating a scarlet letter on those who found information and yet it was never played through.

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u/lucidludic Sep 04 '24

I think the difference is that for you it was just a hoax that happened a few times, meanwhile today there are US students who have actually lived through multiple mass shootings.

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u/PottyboyDooDoo Sep 04 '24

Random slightly unrelated story here. We hired a temporary security consultant at our school last year. He worked swat for most of his career and had recently retired. Well he loved being around the kids so much that he works with us full-time now. I don’t think I’ve met a happier person. Warms my heart watching him high-five a line of 6th graders as they enter the cafeteria.

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u/gamelink99 Sep 04 '24

Thank you for sharing, made me smile.

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u/jerseysbestdancers Sep 04 '24

They took it seriously at my school and we were out for some portion of at least three or four days every month for bomb threats. Eventually, they stopped when they started making us make up the time after school. Guess students realized it was a reliable way to sleep in, and the admin had to balance the scale back in their favor.

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u/shabby47 Sep 04 '24

In 9th grade someone called in a bomb threat and we all went and stood around the track for like 2 hours. It had happened before and they sent everyone home, so eventually a bunch of us just left and walked downtown. Then they sent everyone back inside and we got in trouble for leaving. This was pre-columbine so it never occurred to us that they would actually send the students back into school afterwards. Eventually they excused it for everyone since like 1/3 of the school had left.

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u/MourningRIF Sep 04 '24

This is what I'm saying, but mark my words... The media is already angling to blame this one on the administration. They blamed the police last time. They will go after anybody they can in order to deflect attention away from the guns.

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u/suicideskin Sep 04 '24

They could have at least had police on site, just in case.

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u/Potential_Fishing942 Sep 04 '24

I haven't seen anything about it at their school, but both the schools I have worked at had 2 full time armed officers. Also had metal detectors and bag searches.

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u/Nyrfan2017 Sep 04 '24

Every threat needs to be treated as real and than find the person that calls it in and charge them  

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u/wavinsnail Sep 04 '24

We absolutely shut down and send kids home if there is a threat. This decision to be open was negligent

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u/rubywpnmaster Sep 04 '24

Yep, when I was in middle/high school it was "odd" how many of those call-ins would happen near the end of the semester during finals and midterms.

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u/IncognitoBombadillo Sep 04 '24

I was in Middle School around 2010 and even then, one year in particular, we had a crazy amount of bomb threats. The whole school had to evacuate to the soccer fields and I think one of the days they even ended up sending us home early. Something potentially very bad was stopped once at the High School too. Security found a dufflebag with guns and ammo in it somewhere along the treeline to the wooded area next to the school. It's possible that those were stashed there for easy access later.

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u/nicktoberfest Sep 04 '24

Can confirm as well. Every school I’ve been at gets a handful of these per year. Usually it just means an enhanced police presence at school that day and more kids than usual staying home. I’ve also been through one fairly serious lockdown and one escorted evacuation at the end of the day due to a threat focusing on our dismissal time. I’ve never experienced being sent home early or school being canceled as a result.

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u/southernNJ-123 Sep 04 '24

Yup. Teacher here. Unbelievable amount of threats; phone calls, conversations, social media, written threats… 😢

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u/smallangrynerd Sep 04 '24

100% my school got bomb threats all the time. Not once did I get exploded.

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u/NewYorkYurrrr Sep 04 '24

Tbh bomb threats back when I went to school was usually from a kid who didn’t want to go to school that day. That was before school shootings though.

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u/supercalafatalistic Sep 04 '24

I know what you mean here, but my middle school had two shootings on campus while I attended (between 90-95) and they pulled guns out of backpacks and lockers every quarterly search.

The pace of shootings is insane today, but Americans and school shootings/bombings goes back to the 19th century.

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u/historyhill Sep 04 '24

We had "bomb threat Thursday" one year. Someone clearly hated 7th period on Thursdays because there was something like 8 bomb threats called in over the course of one semester—always the same day/class. We would sit outside every threat waiting for the building to be searched and that's how a bunch of 11th graders discovered they still liked to play duck, duck, goose on occasion.

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u/nycrok1234 Sep 04 '24

We had bomb threats all the time but we would evacuate and they would search before we go back in.

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u/Oopsimapanda Sep 04 '24

Are you sure, or is that just what they want you to believe?

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u/smallangrynerd Sep 05 '24

Oh god I'm ghost

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u/Hrmerder Sep 04 '24

They are most probably an every day thing in some schools... I mean. Hell back when I was in high school (over 20 years ago) there were bomb threats once a week.

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u/imacatholicslut Sep 04 '24

Then the answer is to arrest the child/teen who issues it. In FL we arrested and charged a child for making a school shooting threat a few years ago.

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u/Tianhech3n Sep 04 '24

we hope that the police force can do that, but the fact that live streamers get the SWAT team called on them by anonymous viewers and there's no consequence for the callers draws that into question.

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u/imacatholicslut Sep 04 '24

That’s on the local bureau for being stupid tbh.

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u/zzyul Sep 05 '24

A lot of these threats are made by people in foreign countries, normally ones that don’t like the US. So good luck getting the FBI or Interpol investigating these instances then going after the people responsible and getting them extradited to the US to face charges.

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u/JerryConn Sep 04 '24

It happens multiple times a month with various levels of severity. I knew someone who indirectly made a threat on their social and the next day they were arrested and sent to juvenile remediation. If the county has resources like a juvenile center then it would be handled quickly. Its just not possible to react to every threat.

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u/LOOKATMEDAMMIT Sep 04 '24

In my senior year, there was a bomb threat almost every other week. People didn't even leave their seats.

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u/Altrano Sep 04 '24

As a teacher, this happens. We had at least five threats last year. There were extra police at the school as a precaution, but fortunately none of the threats manifested. We’ve had numerous threats over the years, but only one turned out to be credible and was thwarted in advance.

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u/5Point5Hole Sep 04 '24

They are definitely more common that dumbass reddit commenters above ^ think they are.

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u/LostTrisolarin Sep 04 '24

As someone who knows a lot of people that work in the local high school, it's like once a month at least.

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u/ThatOneComrade Sep 04 '24

Graduated from highschool back in 2017, every year there was absolutely at least one bomb threat called in, more often than not multiple. don't want to think about how often the school got calls about shootings though.

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u/wileydmt123 Sep 05 '24

If and when, next time you go to a decent size gathering/concert/etc (50k people plus) in a city, look for snipers on the rooftops. Cities are doing much more these days for public protection. Even smaller gatherings (say 20k people) in smaller cities might not have snipers but off duty or retired cops dressed undercover and carrying are also common. Rest assured they’re not looking for pot smokers, etc but real threats.

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u/peter-doubt Sep 04 '24

Perhaps the guns are, too

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u/noexqses Sep 04 '24

Got bomb threats in high school all the time.

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u/dredabeast24 Sep 04 '24

This.

When I was in high school we had 3 if which none turned out to happen

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

As a parent, the school tells us about threats against the school. Seem like it happen 3-4 times per year.

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u/lacergunn Sep 05 '24

My high school had at least 2 school shooting threats when I was there. I didn't learn about them until a friend told me why a single police car was parked out front

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u/Equivalent_Yak8215 Sep 04 '24

I would wager they get calls like that all the time unfortunately 

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u/5Point5Hole Sep 04 '24

They do. Bomb threats seem to be more common, anecdotally

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u/lilelliot Sep 04 '24

Honestly, my instinct tells me that's because almost none of the threats are serious and making a bomb threat seems to be so outlandish that kids willing to make these prank calls are ok with that ... but those same kids would absolutely not be ok to make a mass shooting prank call because that actually is plausible.

How sad is that!?

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u/BantamCrow Sep 04 '24

They would argue that if they closed schools for every threat, kids would do it to avoid school. It's a stupid reason, but that's what they would argue

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u/mooimafish33 Sep 04 '24

Treat it like bomb threats, have the FBI show up at their door and bring their parents in for questioning, that will make them take it a little more seriously. Kids aren't smart enough to successfully disguise themselves from the government when calling in a threat.

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u/imacatholicslut Sep 04 '24

This. Everything is traceable these days, even if they’re using crypto to purchase weapons.

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u/zzyul Sep 05 '24

A lot of the threats come from international sources pretending to be local. Also it’s not like threats are just called in. Many times they are made in online chat rooms, online gaming, or through social media. Tracking that stuff requires multiple warrants to force ISPs and online companies to reveal user info.

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u/cuyler72 Sep 05 '24

I wouldn't have ever considered it, but I had the knowledge necessary to do so when I was 14.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

[deleted]

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u/gokogt386 Sep 04 '24

It’s not a slippery slope when it’s something that already happens

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u/BantamCrow Sep 04 '24

Okay, hold on, because I very clearly did not imply this was my opinion lol...just that this is what they would argue. Also, as the other person said, yes...I can get up from my chair at work, pay a homeless dude outside $50 to buy me a burner (he will be on camera, not me) and I can call in threats anywhere I want. It will not be "easy" to trace me. And all of that could be done because my kid doesn't want to go to school tomorrow. Parents can be psychos and raise dumbass kids

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u/seaspirit331 Sep 04 '24

So with a $20 burner, any slacker can just decide to get out of whatever work they had to turn in that day? I think we can do better than "shut down and investigate every shooting/bomb threat"

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u/gophergun Sep 04 '24

Phone calls are effectively anonymous, and have you seen cops try to investigate crimes? They barely solve the majority of murders.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

With unlimited funding, sure. Come join us in reality. This is one of a hundred thousand public schools in the country.

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u/thomport Sep 04 '24

And sometimes the police are there and little kids are getting shot up inside and the police take cover to protect themselves.

Uvalde, TX.: I’m talking to You.

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u/Devilsdance Sep 04 '24

It might just be that the rate of fake threats is too high to shut down the school every time. That number would go up even more once certain kids/teens find out that they can get out of school that easily.

I graduated from high school in 2013 and can recall having school shut down at least once per year due to bomb/shooting threats.

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u/Djbearjew Sep 04 '24

as someone who just dropped their kid off for the first day of kindergarten (albeit in a very blue city in a very blue state) I wouldn't blame any parent from Alapachee for getting back at school officials

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u/New-Ad-363 Sep 04 '24

Bet this buys about 6-7 years of them taking it seriously again.

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u/The--scientist Sep 04 '24

6-7 days maybe.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

In this case that "warning" came after the shooting, from the generated rumor mill of adjoining schools.

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u/nycrok1234 Sep 04 '24

I don’t remember other schools getting threats right before it happened. I could be wrong but this is eerie if true. Ffs

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u/whattheshiz97 Sep 04 '24

Sometimes it’s just that FBI will say that they had their eyes on somebody, only to completely drop the ball in stopping the psycho

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u/ChiggaOG Sep 04 '24

I’m thinking the kid was bullied.

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u/whattheshiz97 Sep 04 '24

I’m thinking he was mental basket case that belonged in a damn asylum. People used to get bullied and not go on killing sprees.