A 14-year-old student opened fire at a Georgia high school and killed four people on Wednesday, authorities said, sending students scrambling for shelter in their classrooms — and eventually to the football stadium — as officers swarmed the campus and parents raced to find out if their children were safe.

The dead were identified as two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Winder, about an hour’s drive from Atlanta. At least nine other people were taken to hospitals with injuries.

The words “hard lockdown” appeared on a screen in junior Layla Ferrell’s health class and lights began flashing. She and her frightened classmates piled desks and chairs in front of the door to create a barricade, she recalled.

Sophomore Kaylee Abner was in geometry class when she heard the gunshots. She and her classmates ducked behind their teacher’s desk, and then the teacher began flipping the desk in an attempt to barricade the classroom door, Abner said. A classmate beside her was praying, and she held his hand while they all waited for police.

After students poured into the football stadium, Abner saw teachers who had taken off their shirts to help treat gunshot wounds.

Two school resource officers encountered the shooter within minutes after a report of shots fired went out, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said. The suspect, a student at the school, immediately surrendered and was taken into custody. He is being charged as an adult with murder.

Authorities were still looking into how the suspect obtained the gun used in the shooting and got it into the school in Barrow County, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta. At an afternoon news conference, officials would not say what type of gun was used.

Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith choked up as he began to speak during the briefing. He said he was born and raised in the community and his kids are in the school system.

“My heart hurts for these kids. My heart hurts for our community,” he said. “But I want to make it very clear that hate will not prevail in this county. I want that to be very clear and known. Love will prevail over what happened today.”

It was the the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut, Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas. The classroom killings have set off fervent debates about gun control and frayed the nerves of parents whose children are growing up accustomed to active shooter drills in classrooms. But they have done little to move the needle on national gun laws.

Before Wednesday, there had been 29 mass killings in the U.S. so far this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. At least 127 people have died in those killings, which are defined as incidents in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer — the same definition used by the FBI.

Last year ended with 217 deaths from 42 mass killings, making 2023 one of the deadliest years on record for such shootings in the country.

On Wednesday in Georgia, sophomore football player Jacob King said he had dozed off in his world history class after a morning practice when he heard about 10 gunshots.

King said he didn’t believe the shooting was real until he heard an officer yelling at someone to put down their gun. When his class was led out, he saw officers shielding what appeared to be an injured student.

Ashley Enoh was at home in the morning when she got a text from her brother, a senior at Apalachee High: “Just so you know, I love you.”

When Erin Clark, 42, received a text from her son Ethan, a senior, saying there was an active shooter, she rushed from her job at the Amazon warehouse to the school. The two texted “I love you,” and Clark said she prayed for her him as she drove.

With the main road to the school blocked, she parked and ran with other parents. They were directed to the football field, and amid the chaos, Clark found Ethan sitting on the bleachers.

Clark said her son was writing an essay in class when he first heard gunfire. He worked with his classmates to barricade the door and hide.

“I’m so proud of him for doing that,” she said. “He was so brave.”

“It makes me scared to send him back,” Clark said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Traffic going to the school was backed up for more than a mile as parents tried to get to their children. Barrow County schools will be closed for the rest of the week as they cooperate with the investigation, but grief counseling will be available.

“It’s just outrageous that every day, in our country, in the United States of America, that parents have to send their children to school worried about whether or not their child will come home alive,” Vice President Kamala Harris said during a campaign stop in New Hampshire.

In a message posted to social media, former President Donald Trump said: “These cherished children were taken from us far too soon by a sick and deranged monster.”

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said in a statement: “This is a day every parent dreads, and Georgians everywhere will hug their children tighter this evening because of this painful event.”

The FBI’s Atlanta office said its agents were at the school “coordinating with and supporting local law enforcement.”

Apalachee High School has about 1,900 students, according to records from Georgia education officials. It opened in 2000, and is named after the Apalachee River on the southern edge of Barrow County, according to the school system.

The shooting had reverberations in Atlanta, where Mayor Andre Dickens said patrols of schools were beefed up.

In Winder, Abner said that when she goes home Wednesday night, she hopes to avoid thinking about those terrifying moments in her geometry class.

“I’ll probably not think about it, even though it happened,” she said. “Just think happy thoughts, don’t think about it anymore.”

Sophomore Shantal Sanvee, who was in a classroom near the gunshots, said “I saw, like, a whole lot of blood. And it was just, it was just horrible.”

“I don’t think I want to be here for like a long time now,” she added.

As an officer led students towards the stadium, freshman Michelle Moncada was in tears. People she knew had been shot, and she saw one friend on the floor who had been grazed by a bullet.

“It doesn’t feel real,” Moncada said.

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Associated Press journalists Sharon Johnson and Mike Stewart in Winder; Beatrice Dupuy in New York; Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia; and Charlotte Kramon, Kate Brumback and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed.

A positive update on Atlanta Braves second baseman Whit Merrifield after he took a hit by pitch to the head on Tuesday night is that he is OK. 

“Yeah, he’s fine. No concussion or anything like that,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “If you ask him he’s ready to go tomorrow. 

However, being all right isn’t going to cut it this time for Merrifield, and perhaps it shouldn’t. 

He expressed his frustration about the lack of accountability for pitchers who are throwing heaters up and in to hitters with the consequences it can have. One of them is the injuries and close calls on injuries to his teammates. 

“It’s ridiculous where the game is at right now,” Merrifield said. “We lost [Austin] Riley. We almost lost [Michael Harris II]. We almost lost [Travis] d’Arnaud in the span of two, three weeks.” 

Third baseman Austin Riley is out for the rest of the regular season, with the postseason up in the air, due to a right hand fractured on a hit by pitch. While he only ended up missing part of a game, it looked like Harris would miss a week. 

Merrifield added how the game has changed to allow for more of these type of injuries to happen. 

“You can’t hit a guy back anymore,” Merrifield said. “That ‘oh if I hit this guy, my guy’s gonna get hit.’ That’s not in the game anymore…the teams are bringing pitchers up that don’t know where [their pitches are] going. They throw 100 miles an hour, and they’re like, ‘All right, we’ll see if you can get these guys out.’”  

Merrifield said he would make sure this is addressed to the rules committee to address safety concerns. 

“It is driving me nuts and I hate where the game is at right now with that, and I’m on the rules committee. We got a call tomorrow. And it’s gonna be a long conversation on what they gotta do to make pitchers think. I just took 95 off the back of the head. I’m very lucky I got hit in a good spot.”

If you saw your teammates get injured and then you took one off the head, you’d likely feel the same way. 

We’ll have to wait and see how the rules committee addresses the state of pitching and the injuries it can lead to and if Merrifield is indeed back in the lineup on Wednesday. 

The stats do back that hit-by-pitches are becoming an issue. It’s happening at its highest rate since the 1890s. According to Baseball Reference, there have been, on average, 0.42 hit by pitches per game in 2024. Between 1927 and 1992, the rate was never above 0.25 and rarely above 0.2 per game. It’s been ticking up gradually ever since and now happens twice as much as when your parents and grandparents watched baseball. 

According to Baseball America, the average velocity on a four-seem fastball has gone from 91.9 in 2008 to 94.2 in 2023. There is a correlation to be made. 

I ran the stats from 2008 to 2023 through a coefficient correlation calculator to test how strong of a correlation there is. The scale is between -1 and 1. The closer the r-value to either end, the stronger the correlation with a score close to zero meaning a weaker correlation. The r-value was 0.7973, indicating a strong correlation between increased velocity and increased hit by pitches. 

Though the players at the rules committee might already know this. 

The Braves continue their series with the Rockies on Wednesday and look to win the series. First pitch is set for 7:20 p.m. EDT. 

Clint Capela is coming off another productive year for the Atlanta Hawks.

He finished the season with averages of 11.5 points, 10.6 rebounds, 1.2 assists and 1.5 blocks per contest while shooting 57.1% from the field in 73 games.

Over the previous two seasons, Capela has been mentioned in trade rumors.

Most recently, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst spoke about Capela on The Hoop Collective Podcast.

Windhorst: “They have Clint Capela, who has been very available. I’m not saying they’re going to trade Clint Capela for a star, but that’s a salary.”

Capela has been with the Hawks since the middle of the 2020 season.

Over 275 games with Atlanta, Capela has averages of 12.3 points, 11.9 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 1.5 blocks per contest while shooting 60.6% from the field.

The Hawks also made the Eastern Conference finals during the 2021 season.

Capela was the 25th pick in the 2014 NBA Draft and has also spent time with the Houston Rockets over his ten seasons in the league.

His career averages are 12.3 points, 10.7 rebounds, 1.0 assists and 1.5 blocks per contest while shooting 62.1% from the field in 609 regular season games.

He has also appeared in 87 NBA playoff games (65 starts).

Via NBA History on January 20, 2021: “Clint Capela recorded 27 points, a career-high 26 rebounds and 5 blocks in tonight’s Hawks win.

The last 4 players do reach 25+ PTS, 25+ REB and 5+ BLK in a game: Shaquille O’Neal, Dikembe Mutombo, Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon.”