Georgia
‘He was a great dad’: Community mourns Georgia high school shooting victims
Authorities said 14-year-olds Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and teachers Richard Aspenwall and Christina Irimie, were killed in the attack.
GA school shooting: Families recount hearing ‘terrifying’ news
Officials said that several people were injured and at least four people are dead after an ‘active shooter situation’ at a school in Winder, Georgia.
ATHENS, Ga. — A rural Georgia community is mourning the loss of four people who were killed Wednesday after a 14-year-old student opened fire at a high school — sending students and staff rushing to shelter in their classrooms as schools throughout the county went into lockdown.
The four victims killed were identified as two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Winder, an Atlanta suburb of 18,300 people. The attack, which also injured eight students and one teacher, sent shock waves through the community.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey confirmed Wednesday night that 14-year-olds, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and teachers Richard Aspinwall and Christina Irimie, were killed in the shooting.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith called the shooting “pure evil.”
“This hits home for me because I was born and raised here,” Smith said at an earlier news conference on Wednesday. “My heart hurts for these kids. My heart hurts for our community, 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. I assure you of that.”
Hundreds of community members gathered in Jug Tavern Park in downtown Winder for a vigil on Wednesday night. Many held candles, bowing their heads down and holding each other as they prayed for the lives lost in the tragic shooting.
Here’s what we know so far about the victims:
Mason Shermerhorn, 14
The mother of Schermerhorn confirmed to WSB-TV Atlanta that her son was killed in the attack.
Schermerhorn was autistic and family members shared photos of him on social media when they couldn’t contact him after the shooting, according to the local television station.
Richard Aspinwall, 39
Aspinwall taught math at Apalachee High School and was the school football team’s defensive coordinator. Head coach Mike Hancock on Wednesday night was grieving Aspinwall’s loss for the Winder community and his family.
“He was a great dad, man, and a great father,” Hancock said. “He loved his two girls and he loved his wife. He did happen to love the game of football and he was well respected around this area.”
Aspinwall, a Rome native, was one of Hancock’s first hires when taking over Apalachee’s program last season when Aspinwall came from Mountain View High School in Lawrenceville to serve as the defensive coordinator.
“We’ve got a staff that’s hurting,” Hancock added. “This staff has been together for two years and Ricky has been a big part of it. It’s tough.”
Christina Irimie, 53
According to the Barrow County Schools website, Irimie was a math teacher at Apalachee High School.
Contributing: Sara Tidwell, Athens Banner-Herald
Georgia baseball will resume its NCAA Athens Regional game with Long Island at 9 a.m. on Saturday, May 29, after persistent rain—heavy at times—forced the suspension of the game.
The Bulldogs have a commanding 15-1 lead with nobody out in the bottom of the sixth.
The teams and some fans waited out a delay that started 7:14 p.m.
The game was suspended officially at 9:06 p.m. Long Island players were already grabbing their equipment in the dugout to depart for the team hotel before then.
The winner of Georgia-LIU will play No. 3 seed Liberty Saturday in the double-elimination tournament in a game scheduled for 5 p.m.
The loser will play No. 2 seed Boston College at noon.
The No. 3 national seed Bulldogs hit six homers before the game was delayed due to heavy rain.
There was a 53 percent chance of rain at 9 a.m. Saturday, according to weather.com, decreasing to 17 percent at 11 a.m., but there’s a threat of storms in the afternoon.
The Georgia Public Service Commission this week approved a plan expected to reduce utility bills for Georgia Power customers by a few dollars a month.
The commission said the change will generate about $285 million in total annual savings for Georgia Power customers, or roughly $50 per year — about $4.04 per month — for the average residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month.
The Georgia PSC voted Thursday to lower overall rates as part of the approved plan.
Georgia Power Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Tyler Cook said the decision will provide “real savings for Georgia families and businesses as the heat of summer begins and energy use increases.”
“At Georgia Power, our teams work every day to run our business efficiently and keep reliable and affordable energy flowing to our customers,” Cook said.
Cook said the outcome followed months of work between Georgia Power and PSC staff, including reviews, public hearings and input from residents and intervenors.
The approved plan is tied to a stipulated agreement reached earlier this month involving two cases filed with the PSC in February, the Fuel Cost Recovery case and the Storm Cost Recovery case. Those cases addressed recovering fuel costs used to generate electricity and expenses tied to restoring power after storms.
Georgia Power said its rates remain, on average, about 15% below the national average and that it is still on track to provide additional annual savings of about $102 per year for typical residential customers beginning in 2029.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Public Service Commission approved a stipulated agreement on Thursday to lower utility rates for Georgia Power customers starting June 1.
The regulatory body voted to pass the deal without changes, establishing how the utility can bill for fuel costs and storm damage restoration expenses.
State regulators approve rate cuts
What we know:
The Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) voted 3-2 to reject several utility cost amendments before ultimately passing the overall deal. Under the approved agreement, a typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month will see monthly bills decrease by roughly $4.03 to $4.04. Total annual savings across all 2.8 million Georgia Power customers are projected to reach approximately $285 million.
The deal reduces how much money the utility can recover from its customer base for storm expenses by nearly 60%, dropping the revenue requirement from $270 million down to $109 million. The agreement also extends the amortization of storm recovery costs, largely tied to Hurricane Helene in 2024, to 67 months, caps natural gas advance purchases at 20% over a 36-month window, and cuts $13 million from the company’s original fuel recovery estimates.
Accountability questions remain unresolved
What we don’t know:
While the PSC agreed to launch a separate investigation into how fuel costs are allocated, officials have not yet confirmed how much large industrial operations will be forced to pay in future rate cases. Consumer advocacy groups argue that massive data center companies are driving up fuel costs for everyday ratepayers without paying for the infrastructure upgrades they require. Critics note that it remains unclear if a future utility asset structure will successfully shift financial burdens away from residential homes.
The Source: The information in this story was gathered from official press releases issued by the Georgia Public Service Commission and Georgia Power, as well as previous FOX 5 Atlanta reporting.
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