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A 14-year-old student charged with four counts of murder after a mass shooting earlier this week at Apalachee High School is expected to face additional charges in connection with the injured victims, officials said Friday.

As authorities mull more charges and examine the case, a small Georgia community is grieving the two students and two teachers who died Wednesday in the 45th school shooting of 2024 – and the deadliest US school shooting since the March 2023 massacre at The Covenant School in Nashville.

In the days since the tragic attack, Apalachee students have given harrowing accounts of the courageous actions they took to protect their classmates and teachers in the face of senseless violence.

In one classroom, a 14-year-old said she kept the suspect from getting through the door when she saw him pull out a gun. And after a teacher in another classroom was shot, students say they pulled him back inside and used the shirts off their backs to try and stop his bleeding while barricading the door with desks and chairs. Even with a gunshot wound, one teenage boy said he raced to close the classroom door to prevent the shooter from entering.

Victims’ families wiped away tears or clutched stuffed animals as they sat in the Barrow County courtroom Friday during Colt Gray’s arraignment, where he declined to enter a plea to the charges against him.

Prosecutors allege Gray fired an AR-style rifle on campus Wednesday morning, killing four people. Nine others were injured, all but two of whom were shot, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said.

Because of his young age, the maximum penalty Gray could face is life in prison with or without parole, Judge Currie Mingledorff told the teenager in court. In 2005, the US Supreme Court ruled no one can be put to death for crimes committed before the age of 18.

Gray’s father, Colin Gray, 54, faces a maximum sentence of 180 years in prison for four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children.

An arrest warrant for Colin Gray alleges he gave his son a firearm “with knowledge he was a threat to himself and others.” He declined to enter a plea at his first court appearance Friday, and neither him nor his son have asked for bond to be set at their hearings.

“I’m just trying to use the tools in my arsenal to prosecute people for the crimes they commit,” Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith said.

Smith said he expects additional charges will be filed against Colt Gray in connection with victims who were injured during the shooting. Authorities on Thursday said all nine people wounded in Wednesday’s shooting are expected to make a full recovery.

“When he was taken into custody on Wednesday, we did not have the identities or the conditions of the other victims. So we were not able to charge on those offenses,” Smith said. “So when evidence comes in, and they’ve had a chance to heal physically, emotionally and spiritually, we will get with them, and there will be additional charges that address the other victims.”

The next step in the case against Gray will be a grand jury meeting on October 17. This will be followed by a scheduled arraignment before the trial process is started, Smith said. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for December 4, Mingledorff said.

Here’s what we know so far:

• Suspect will be tried as an adult: Colt Gray, who is being held at the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, is slated to remain there while in custody until he turns 17, Glenn Allen, the agency’s spokesperson, told CNN Thursday. Under Georgia law, a juvenile aged 13 to 17 who commits a serious crime is automatically tried as an adult.

• The four people killed: The shooting at Apalachee High School claimed the lives of two 14-year-old students – Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, as well as two teachers – 53-year-old math teacher Cristina Irimie and 39-year-old assistant football coach Richard Aspinwall, who also taught math. Authorities say Irimie was celebrating her birthday with her students the day she was shot and killed, according to a family friend.

• Nine injured are expected to make a full recovery: Of the nine other people injured, seven of them – six students and a teacher – were shot, the GBI said Thursday. The other two – both students – suffered other injuries, the GBI said.

• Suspect was questioned about online threats: In May 2023, law enforcement officials questioned Colt Gray and his father about “online threats to commit a school shooting” that included photos of guns, according to a joint statement from FBI Atlanta and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office. Colt Gray, who was 13 at the time, told investigators during that interview that “someone is accusing him of threatening to shoot up a school, stating that he would never say such a thing, even in a joking manner,” authorities said. Authorities could not substantiate the threats and the investigation was closed, according to the sheriff’s office.

• Suspect’s father gifted him the gun involved in shooting: Two law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the investigation said Colin Gray told authorities he purchased the AR-style rifle used in the school shooting as a holiday present for his son in December 2023 – just months after authorities initially contacted the father about the online threats.

• Suspect had writings on past school shootings: During questioning, Gray told investigators “I did it.” As authorities searched his home, they found documents that they believe he wrote referencing past school shootings, including references to the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, a law enforcement source told CNN.

Bri Jones, 14, was in second period Wednesday when Colt Gray left the classroom, Jones said. “We didn’t notice he left,” Jones said, adding that Gray was “always quiet.”

But Gray came back and knocked on the door, Jones said.

Bri said she peeked out the door before she opened it because that’s what her mom taught her to do.

“As I was looking at the door, he was pulling his gun out, and then I froze up, like I froze up and I said ‘no’ to myself,” she told CNN’s Isabel Rosales.

The teacher asked for the door to be opened, Bri said, “because she didn’t know he had a gun because she was at her desk.” As she went the open the door, “I was like, ‘no, he has a gun,’” Jones said.

Then, the shooter looked up at them before turning and firing shots, Jones said.

“He was looking at me, my teacher, and then​ somebody was in the hall,” she said. “He turned his head and he just started shooting.”

The students then ran to the back of the class and the teacher turned off the lights, Bri said.

“Once he started shooting, it’s like he kept going, it was so many gunshots after gunshots,” she said. “It felt like he was just shooting forever.”

If she had opened the class door, Bri said she believes the suspect “would have got every single one of us in that class.”

Another student, 14-year-old Ronaldo Vega, immediately took cover under his desk when the shooting began in his second-period math class, he said. Ronaldo was injured amid the four to six shots fired, but he still stood up quickly to close the classroom door so the shooter “couldn’t come back,” he said.

Only after seeing one of the bullets behind the teacher’s desk did he realize he had been shot and was bleeding, Ronaldo recounted.

Richard Aspinwall, a math teacher, heard commotion outside his classroom and entered the hallway to see what was going on. When he did, he was shot in the chest by the 14-year-old suspect, according to family friend Julie Woodson, who cited accounts by Aspinwall’s students.

“We had to watch our teacher come back in the classroom holding himself like he’s been shot, and fell to the floor,” 17-year-old Malasia Mitchell said. “And as he kept going, my teacher was shot again.”

Students in the class say they pulled Aspinwall back into the classroom and used the shirts off their backs to try and stop their teacher’s bleeding, according to Woodson.

Meanwhile, the students closed the door and protected themselves with desks and chairs, Mitchell said.

Woodson said Aspinwall “died as a hero trying to save his students’ lives.”

“If he didn’t walk out and take the bullet … who knows what would’ve happened,” Woodson said.

Malasia remembered her teacher as a “great guy” with “such a happy spirit” — someone who wouldn’t want her to ever give up.

“He wouldn’t want me to just stop coming to school,” she said. “He would want me to keep going.”

Apalachee High School math teacher Cristina Irimie was celebrating her birthday with her students the day she and three others were fatally shot in Wednesday’s mass shooting.

“She decided to bake a cake and bring pizza to her class the day she died so she could celebrate her birthday with her kids,” grieving friend Corneliu Caprar told CNN.

Irimie and her husband couldn’t have children of their own, so she considered her students her kids, the pal said.

The Romanian-born educator had turned 53 earlier, in August.

The other teacher killed that day, Richard Aspinwall, was shot when he went outside his classroom to see what was going on, a family friend told the outlet.

Some of his students ripped their shirts off to try to stop him from bleeding after he was hit, she said.

“His students pulled Ricky back into the classroom and used their own shirts to try to stop the bleeding and save him,” the friend, Julie Woodson, said.

“If he didn’t walk out and take the bullet … who knows what would’ve happened.” 

Woodson added that Aspinall’s family wants the world to know, “Ricky was their nucleus, and he died as a hero trying to save his students’ lives.”

Friends of Irimie, who immigrated to the US more than 20 years ago, said she was known for her smile, her vibrant personality and her passion for her teaching — which to her was not just a job, but a calling.

“The first thing you see is her big smile. She was always smiling,” Father Nicolae Clempus, pastor of St. Mary’s Romanian Orthodox Church in Dacula, told Fox 5 Atlanta.

Clempus said Irimie’s husband is grieving the loss of his beloved wife in private.

“He’s definitely devastated and heartbroken. They were together all the time, having a very nice and beautiful family life,” the priest said.

“There’s no logic in this kind of tragedy,” he said of her senseless death but adding that she would live on in the hearts of her church family and others who knew her.

“We consider her a hero. Somebody that we’re going to remember and look to as a role model for our generations.”

WINDER, Ga. (AP) — The 14-year-old suspect in a shooting at a Georgia high school that killed four people and his father will both stay in custody following back-to-back court hearings Friday morning where their lawyers declined to seek bail.

At 14-year-old Colt Gray’s hearing, the teen was advised of his rights along with the charges and penalties he faced.

After the hearing, Colt Gray was escorted out in shackles at the wrists and ankles in khaki pants and a green shirt. The judge then called Colt Gray back to the courtroom to correct an earlier misstatement that his crimes could be punishable by death. Because he’s a juvenile, the maximum penalty he would face is life without parole. The judge also set another hearing for Dec. 4.

WATCH: Students mourn 4 killed in Georgia school shooting as investigators explore past threats

Shortly after Colt Gray’s hearing, his father, Colin Gray, was brought into court. Colin Gray, 54, was charged Thursday in connection with the shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, outside Atlanta. Nine people were also hurt in Wednesday’s attack.

Colin Gray, dressed in a gray-striped jail uniform at Friday’s hearing, answered questions in a barely audible croak, giving his age and saying he finished 11th grade, earning a high school equivalency diploma.

About 50 onlookers were in the courtroom for the hearings, in addition to news media and sheriff’s deputies. Some family members of victims in the front row hugged each other and one woman clutched a stuffed animal.

Before the hearings at the Barrow County courthouse, court workers set out boxes of tissue along courtroom benches, and relatives and community members began to trickle into the courtroom Friday morning in advance of the hearings for the son and father.

READ MORE: Father of 14-year-old Georgia school shooting suspect arrested on multiple charges

According to arrest warrants obtained by The Associated Press, Colt Gray is accused of using a “black semi-automatic AR-15 style rifle” to kill two students and two teachers at the school. Authorities have not offered any motive or explained how he obtained the gun or got it into the school.

Colin Gray was charged Thursday in connection with the shooting, including with counts of involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said.

“His charges are directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon,” Hosey said.

It’s the latest example of prosecutors holding parents responsible for their children’s actions in school shootings. In April, Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting. They were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four students in 2021. The Georgia shootings have also renewed debate about safe storage laws for guns and have parents wondering how to talk to their children about school shootings and trauma.

The morning court hearings for the father and son came as police in the Atlanta suburb of Dunwoody said schools there and nationwide have received threats of violence since the Georgia shooting, police said in a statement. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation also noted that numerous threats have been made to schools across the state this week.

Before Colin Gray’s arrest was reported, the AP knocked on the door of a home listed for him seeking comment about his son’s arrest.

Colt Gray was charged as an adult with four counts of murder in the deaths of Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53.

A neighbor remembered Schermerhorn as inquisitive when he was a little boy. Aspinwall and Irimie were both math teachers, and Aspinwall also helped coach the school’s football team. Irimie, who immigrated from Romania, volunteered at a local church, where she taught dance.

Colt Gray denied threatening to carry out a school shooting when authorities interviewed him last year about a menacing post on social media, according to a sheriff’s report obtained Thursday. Conflicting evidence on the post’s origin left investigators unable to arrest anyone, the report said. Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said she reviewed the report from May 2023 and found nothing that would have justified bringing charges at the time.

The attack was 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 but there has been little change to national gun laws.

It was the 30th mass killing 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 events in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer — the same definition used by the FBI.

Martin reported from Atlanta. Associated Press journalists Charlotte Kramon, Sharon Johnson, Mike Stewart and Erik Verduzco in Winder; Trenton Daniel and Beatrice Dupuy in New York; Eric Tucker in Washington; Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia; Kate Brumback in Atlanta; and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed to this report.