'Love will prevail': Georgia town rallies together after school shooting

WINDER, Ga. — Morning arrived Saturday like so many others. Slightly cool, a hint of fall under the rays of the golden sun.

People ran errands and met friends for coffee and early lunches. But everywhere in this northeast Georgia community — the marquee outside the movie theater, the Walgreens in downtown, front lawns throughout Barrow County — the signs served as reminders.

“Pray for Apalachee High School.”

“Barrow County Strong.”

“Love will prevail.”

The agony of Wednesday’s shooting at Apalachee High School, which claimed the lives of two students and two teachers, remains raw for everyone in this tight-knit community.

Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, two 14-year-old students, and Cristina Irimie and Ricky Aspinwall, two math teachers at the high school, were all killed. Nine people were also injured.

Nicole Harold put up another sign at her farmer’s market booth, explaining that the day’s proceeds would be donated to the Barrow Community Crisis Fund.

“I love our community, and this is the tiniest thing I can do,” Harold said. “In a time of need, we are all here for each other.”

The days since Wednesday’s attack have been spent mourning and remembering. Healing will take time.

On Saturday morning, family members updated the conditions of two people wounded at Apalachee.

After three days in the hospital and two surgeries, a 15-year-old wounded in the shoulder gets to go home, her mother Jackelyn Garcia posted on Facebook Saturday morning.

Garcia’s daughter, Melany, made it out of her second surgery Friday, and hospital staff were able to close her gunshot wound. Melany’s broken bone seems to be aligned well enough to heal on its own, her mother wrote, and they’ll know in a few weeks if she will need any more procedures.

David Phenix, a teacher at the school who sustained gunshot woods to his hip and foot, is stable, his daughter Katie Phenix wrote on Facebook. In an update posted Saturday morning, she thanked the ICU and surgical care teams for their kindness and generosity.

Phenix had stomach pain the previous night, but he’s feeling better this morning, Phenix wrote. He will see his grandson later today. “All things are positive!” she wrote. “We spent the night watching ‘Friends’ on TV!”

On social media or in quiet conversations around town, some people are comparing their feelings after the shooting to how they felt after the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001. In both cases, they had the feeling of needing to have their children in their arms, of trying to get the sound of sirens out of their head. Both events were “catastrophic,” one resident said Saturday. “Like an earthquake.”

‘It’s going to take a long time’

At a vigil at Jug Tavern Park in Winder on Friday evening, hundreds sobbed amid raindrops as they grieved for loved ones and friends.

Among the attendees were relatives of Angulo. Sarah Schneider, the founder of a local nonprofit that specializes in bereavement counseling for siblings, said the family is not ready to talk to the media but allowed her to speak on their behalf and read words written by Christian’s sister, Lisette.

“We miss my baby brother so much. Honestly, we don’t know how we’re going to navigate life without him. We just want him back,” said Lisette, whose words were read onstage by Schneider. “We’re trying to be strong for him, but we are hurting. We wish this never happened.”

After the shooting, a 14-year-old student and his father were arrested and charged in connection to the murders. School was canceled across Barrow County, to return on Tuesday. Apalachee High, however, will not reopen Tuesday.

Winder is the type of community where it’s impossible to not know someone who was impacted by the tragedy, said local coffee shop owner Millie Finch. Finch and her husband opened Night Sky Coffee Roasters in February this year, in part to build “a space people can come and be safe and have conversations.”

“We’re just staying open, being here for the people, hopefully making a space where people can feel safe,” Finch said. “It’s going to take a long time for such a small, tight-knit community to feel safe again.”

Some staff at the shop are recent graduates of Apalachee. Students come to the shop to study, she said.

“You see everybody, and it hurts your heart to know that their life is going to be changed now,” she said.

In Barrow County, where high school football rivalries captivate the town on Friday nights, “two schools come together as one — it doesn’t matter what side of the tracks you’re on,” said Daniel Dewitt, who graduated from Winder-Barrow High School, Apalachee’s rival. “When there’s a tragedy, we all come together.”

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., and U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., spoke to the community at the vigil on Friday and lit candles to honor those who died.

“All of us who are parents, when we have the honor of dropping our children off to school in the morning, we want to be able to pick them up a few hours later,” Warnock said. “ … Increasingly, in the United States of America, we can’t take for granted that we will pick our children up.”

The Apalachee shooting has renewed debate on access to guns and other steps to try to stop gun violence.

“I don’t think you can legislate evil and hate away,” said Collins, a Republican who represents the district. “In the midst of our pain … I am so thankful that Barrow County had that emergency action plan in place and used it.”

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens in a video message Friday night pleaded for lawmakers to act. Violent crime in Atlanta, which has decreased over the past few years, is still primarily an issue of gun access. He said 84% of homicides in his city are gun-related.

“Apparently, the choice has been made for us to live in a world where we place guns over the lives of our children,” Dickens said. “It’s a policy decision made by those in halls of Congress and throughout our state. This is unacceptable. We can and must do better.”