Georgia Shooting Might Have Been ‘Way Worse’ Without Security Steps

The deadliest episode of school violence in Georgia’s history could have ended with even more bloodshed, if not for the school’s newly installed security systems, according to law enforcement officials.

The Wednesday shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., killed two teachers and two students, and injured at least nine others. But the gunman may have been stopped from taking more lives after a staff member appeared to activate an alarm that triggered a police response, officials said.

All teachers at the school were equipped with an ID badge on a lanyard that had a panic button, which alerts the police to an active threat, according to the authorities. The badges can also initiate a schoolwide lockdown when activated, according to Centegix, the company that makes them.

The alert system can send both administrators and responders details on the floor and classroom where the staff member sends up the alarm, and it operates outside of a school Wi-Fi network, according to Centegix.

The security measure had been installed at the high school about a week before the shooting, law enforcement officials told reporters.

“This could’ve been way worse,” Jud Smith, the Barrow County sheriff, said at a news conference on Wednesday.

Since the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, schools have sought ways to bolster security and save lives during a shooting. They have turned both to technology and training to help students and teachers prepare for the worst.

Ninety-five percent of schools now conduct lockdown drills, according to a 2017 federal report, while nearly two-thirds of secondary schools have sworn law enforcement officers working on campus. School spending on security topped $3 billion annually in 2021, with companies marketing electronic locks, software to look for threats in students’ social media posts and many other services and gadgets.

Still, there is little evidence suggesting that these efforts prevent gun violence. Armed police officers were on duty during several mass shootings, including the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. In Uvalde, Texas, law enforcement conducted an elaborate school-shooting role-play less than two years before a gunman there killed 19 students and two teachers.

At Apalachee High on Wednesday, the police accused a 14-year-old of bringing a military-style rifle into the school building and killing two educators and two 14-year-old students on Wednesday.

The school did not have metal detectors, according to a teacher at the school, but doors always locked automatically when they closed. Experts who study school shootings say locks are one of the most effective and cheapest security measures. Georgia law enforcement officials said more families may have lost loved ones if classroom doors at the school did not lock.

Stephen Kreyenbuhl, 26, was teaching a world history class on Wednesday in a hall around the corner from the classrooms where the shooting occurred. He said that as gunshots rang out, a lockdown alert flashed on a screen in his classroom, indicating that another staff member had activated their ID alarm. He said the gunman did not enter his classroom because the door was locked.

Mr. Kreyenbuhl and law enforcement officials also credited school resource officers at the high school with their handling of the shooting. “His response was probably under 120 seconds,” the teacher said of one of the officers.

Mr. Smith, the sheriff, said at a news conference that at least two school resource officers were regularly stationed at the high school, and Mr. Kreyenbuhl said they were armed. When they were alerted to a potential gunman, one “engaged him, and the shooter quickly realized that if he did not give up” he would be shot, the sheriff said.

He did not identify the school resource officers, and the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council, which certifies the state’s public safety workers, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Still, Chris Hosey, the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, said at a news conference that the security protocols “prevented this from being a much larger tragedy.”