Two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School were shot and killed and nine other people were hospitalized with gunshot wounds Wednesday. The deadly Sept. 4 incident was the 218th time a gun was fired or brandished at a school so far in 2024, data shows.
The suspected shooter — a 14-year-old student at the northern Georgia school — was arrested and is being charged with murder. Authorities said he would be tried as an adult.
A CBS News analysis of data from the K-12 Shooting Database shows that of those more than 200 incidents as of Sept. 4 — which include gang violence, domestic incidents and accidents, among other causes — 10 were in Georgia, including Wednesday’s incident.
And, like the majority — nearly 51% — of school shootings in the last 10 years, the fatal incident in north Georgia happened during the school day, while classes were in session. The 2022 shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School, for example, occurred while school was in session.
The rest happen after school hours, mostly during extracurricular activities like sporting or school events, such as a 2023 shooting at a New Jersey high school football game where a 10-year-old was killed. School shootings that happen inside the school building tend to be deadlier, data show.
So far in 2024, 18 of the 46 people killed in school shootings were under the age of 18, not including the two students and two teachers in the Sept. 4 incident.
Following the 2012 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado — at the time, the nation’s deadliest shooting — many states started mandating active shooter drills, which reached 95% of public schools in the 2015-2016 school year, CBS News previously reported.
