Speaker 1: We have an active shooter, we have an actor shoot.
Speaker 2: It's glad to Claire.
Speaker 3: It's a mass casualty.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Active Shooter, a podcast that covers the wys,
Speaker 1: the hows, and the aftermath of active shooter and mass
Speaker 1: casualty events.
Speaker 4: I'm an active shooter in the building and check you call,
Speaker 4: says our favorite cat shot.
Speaker 2: What six nights fais?
Speaker 5: We've got shots fires four fifteen as.
Speaker 4: Reaching ninety one sounded like no, I'm.
Speaker 6: At a fire, active shooter. It's of an active shooter, active.
Speaker 1: Shooter, active shooter of mass casualty incidents. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 3: You are listening to Active Shooter, a podcast that may
Speaker 3: contain adult themes, explicit language, and graphic depictions of violence.
Speaker 3: Portions of this show may be traumatic for those under eighteen.
Speaker 3: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: It is with a pen dipped in the ink of
Speaker 1: memory that we turn our gaze upon a day that
Speaker 1: dawned like any other, yet ended cloaked in the darkness
Speaker 1: of shadows, A day when the ordinary hum of hallways
Speaker 1: and the cheerful chatter of youth were brutally silenced, replaced
Speaker 1: by the piercing shriek of terror and the mournful echo
Speaker 1: of loss. Welcome listeners to Active Shooter. I'm JT your host,
Speaker 1: and this is where we delve into the chilling wyse,
Speaker 1: the harrowing howls, and the enduring aftermath of active shooter
Speaker 1: and mass casualty events. Thank you for joining us on
Speaker 1: this journey into the shadows. This is the story of
Speaker 1: Appalachi High School, a place of learning nestled in the
Speaker 1: quiet embrace of winder Georgia, a town about fifty miles
Speaker 1: northeast of Atlanta, where, on September fourth, twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: the innocence of a new school year was irrevocably shattered.
Speaker 1: It became, in a single horrifying hour, the sight of
Speaker 1: Georgia's deadliest school shooting, a wound etched deep into the
Speaker 1: heart of a community, a grim testament to the fragility
Speaker 1: of peace. If you look this case up, you'll find
Speaker 1: that the name of the shooter in this episode is
Speaker 1: wholly inaccurate. For those of you who have been with
Speaker 1: us before, you know that our team has taken the
Speaker 1: no notoriety pledge. This means that we will never utter
Speaker 1: the real name of the individuals responsible for the tragedies
Speaker 1: we cover. Instead, we'll assign them a pseudonym, and that's
Speaker 1: the name you'll hear throughout each episode. It helps us
Speaker 1: keep the narrative clear while staying true to our commitment
Speaker 1: denying these perpetrators the infamy they often crave. In today's episode,
Speaker 1: we will refer to the shooter as Tommy. The sun
Speaker 1: on that fateful Wednesday, rose with a deceptive warmth over
Speaker 1: Appalachi High, a public school serving around nineteen hundred students.
Speaker 1: Its brick facade, usually a symbol of stability, stood unwitting
Speaker 1: witness to the unfolding tragedy. The morning began not with
Speaker 1: a bang, but a series of disquieting whispers, like stones
Speaker 1: dropped into a still pond, sending out ripples of unease.
Speaker 1: First there was the anonymous call, a voice from the ether,
Speaker 1: chillingly precise. Five schools would be targeted, and Appalachi would
Speaker 1: be the first such threats in a world grown weary
Speaker 1: of them. Often fade into the background noise of daily life,
Speaker 1: but this one, unlike so many other, also carried a
Speaker 1: bitter truth. Then came the frantic call from Tommy's mother,
Speaker 1: a mother's intuition, perhaps screaming louder than any siren. For
Speaker 1: ten long minutes, she spoke with the school administrator, her
Speaker 1: voice undoubtedly laced with a desperate urgency. She pleaded with
Speaker 1: them to find her son, a boy barely past childhood,
Speaker 1: a mere fourteen years old. She warn't a counselor of
Speaker 1: an extreme emergency, a phrase that should have, in that moment,
Speaker 1: brought the world to a standstill. This call, a half
Speaker 1: hour before the first shot rang out, was a desperate,
Speaker 1: unheard cry in the wilderness. The administrators, despite her pleas,
Speaker 1: could not locate him. Later, the boy's own sister would
Speaker 1: reveal that he had been speaking of a school shooting
Speaker 1: that very morning, a premonition shared within their home, a
Speaker 1: seek that was simply too terrible to keep, but too
Speaker 1: late to prevent. The mother, in all consuming grief and horror,
Speaker 1: would decline to elaborate on the exact nature of her warning,
Speaker 1: but the information she confirmed had been shared with law enforcement.
Speaker 1: The air inside the school, though outwardly calm, held a
Speaker 1: subtle tension, a barely perceptible shift in the atmosphere. In
Speaker 1: his first period class, Tommy, a boy whose name would
Speaker 1: soon be synonymous with unspeakable acts posed a question that,
Speaker 1: in hindsight, echoed with sinister intent. How would the school
Speaker 1: respond to an active shooter. A teacher, perhaps sensing the
Speaker 1: unsettling nature of the question or simply following protocol, reported
Speaker 1: the comment via email to some school staff. It was
Speaker 1: a small, diligent act, yet one that, in a cruel
Speaker 1: twist of fate, missed its most crucial reciption, the algebra teacher,
Speaker 1: whose classroom would become the eye of the storm. The warning,
Speaker 1: so numerous, so clear, seemed to fray and snap just
Speaker 1: before they could be cobbled together. As the clock ticked
Speaker 1: on towards the appointed hour, the boy sent two brief,
Speaker 1: chilling messages. At nine forty two am, a text to
Speaker 1: his father quote, I'm sorry. It's not your fault. You're
Speaker 1: not to blame for any of it. Twenty minutes later,
Speaker 1: at ten oh two am, an even more desolate message
Speaker 1: to his mother, quote I'm sorry. These were not pleased
Speaker 1: for help, but pronouncement of his dark, predetermined path that
Speaker 1: he had paved for himself in only the blackest of asphalt.
Speaker 1: Around nine forty five am, three minutes later, the algebra
Speaker 1: classroom door clicked shut behind him, its automatic lock, sealing
Speaker 1: the fate of those inside. He had asked his teacher
Speaker 1: for permission to go to the office to speak with someone.
Speaker 1: The teacher, perhaps seeing only a troubled youth seeking comfort,
Speaker 1: allowed him to leave, even take his belongings, an innocent
Speaker 1: gesture that would soon.
Speaker 2: Turn to regret.
Speaker 1: He made his way to a student bathroom in Jay Hall,
Speaker 1: a mundane space where the most dramatic events usually involved
Speaker 1: forgotten textbooks or whispered secrets. There, in the sterile confines
Speaker 1: of a stall, he transformed. He emerged wearing plastic gloves,
Speaker 1: a detail that spoke of premeditation, of a detachment from
Speaker 1: the horror he was about to unleash. His backpack concealed
Speaker 1: a rolled up white poster board, which wrapped the cold
Speaker 1: hard reality of a sig hour M four hundred AR
Speaker 1: fifteen style semi automatic rifle strapped to his lower torso.
Speaker 1: And then another cruel coincidence, a moment of mistaken identity
Speaker 1: that would cause precious minutes precious lives. As he exited
Speaker 1: the bathroom, another student bearing the same last name and
Speaker 1: strikingly similar first name also left the algebra classroom. The
Speaker 1: school resource officers, alerted by the staff and Tommy's mother,
Speaker 1: to the escalating urgency, began their methodical door to door search,
Speaker 1: calling out Tommy's last name. They were so close, so
Speaker 1: agonizingly close, to apprehending him in the very bathroom where
Speaker 1: he had armed himself, But fate, or perhaps a terrible
Speaker 1: twist of circumstances intervene. They apprehended the wrong boy, the
Speaker 1: one with a similar name. For ten agonizing minutes, the
Speaker 1: true perpetrator remained at large, unseen, unheard, while the clock
Speaker 1: ticked closer to the catastrophe. When the error was realized
Speaker 1: and the innocent student released, the frantic search resumed, but
Speaker 1: the window of opportunity had narrowed to a sliver. At
Speaker 1: ten eighteen am, Tommy's mother, her fear now palpable, texted
Speaker 1: his father quote, They're going to need you at school.
Speaker 1: The words hung in the air, heavy with unspoken dread.
Speaker 1: The shooting began just minutes later. The furst shots, when
Speaker 1: they came, were like thunderclaps in a quiet library, shattering
Speaker 1: the morning's fragile piece. Tommy, having left his algebra class,
Speaker 1: now sought to re enter, knocking on the door a student,
Speaker 1: perhaps out of habit or concern, of a classmate went
Speaker 1: to open it, but through the glass panel a site
Speaker 1: that would forever haunt their memory, the glint of a gun. No,
Speaker 1: he has a gun, the student cried, a desperate warning.
Speaker 1: The teacher, perhaps disbelieving, perhaps in shock, still urged the
Speaker 1: student to open the door. But Tommy did not wait.
Speaker 1: He entered not the algebra classroom, but one nearby, and
Speaker 1: unleashed a torrent of violence. Ten to fifteen rounds exploded
Speaker 1: within the confines of that room, striking multiple innocent souls,
Speaker 1: among them Christian Angelo, a fourteen year old ninth grader
Speaker 1: whose young life so full of promise, was extinguished in
Speaker 1: an instant. He then began to run a terrifying blur
Speaker 1: down the hall, still firing, still seeking targets, moving towards
Speaker 1: a set of toilets. The school, once a sanctuary, was
Speaker 1: now a labyrinth of terror. One student huddled in a
Speaker 1: technology class, described the chilling sound of shots ringing out.
Speaker 1: The desperate huddle in a corner, hands over heads, and
Speaker 1: their teachers hushed plea to stay quiet. In the midst
Speaker 1: of the chaos, a new system, scintigics, proved it's worth
Speaker 1: Many staff members with trembling fingers pushed the panic buttons
Speaker 1: on their IDs. These new ideas, given to every teacher,
Speaker 1: were designed for just such a nightmare. Equipped with dynamic
Speaker 1: digital mapping with real time locating capabilities.
Speaker 7: Every second matters in an emergency. The Syntegics Crisis Alert
Speaker 7: system gives staff members the ability to instantly report emergencies
Speaker 7: and appropriately respond to any situation that may occur on
Speaker 7: a school's campus faster than ever before. The most likely
Speaker 7: use of the stategic safety system will be the three
Speaker 7: press alert, used for common situations that require immediate medical
Speaker 7: as well as prevention and intervention in student altercations. The
Speaker 7: alerted room one, but the integic system is also built
Speaker 7: to deal with the worst case scenario, a school intruder
Speaker 7: or active shooter emergency. A total school lockdown can be
Speaker 7: triggered by any staff member on the school's campus by
Speaker 7: repeatedly pressing the crisis alert datche. This type of alert
Speaker 7: immediately notifies the local safety team, district personnel, and all
Speaker 7: local law enforcement of a dangerous threat on the school grounds.
Speaker 7: The crisis alert system also gives school administrators the ability
Speaker 7: to broadcast emergency codes to the entire student body on
Speaker 7: and off campus. In the event of a major emergency
Speaker 7: at the push of a button. The new Scientergics Alert
Speaker 7: system uses the latest and emergency response technology to ensure
Speaker 7: the safety of its schools.
Speaker 1: The school's doors, designed to automatically lock once shut, became
Speaker 1: a crucial line of defense, requiring internal opening, a barrier
Speaker 1: against the encroaching horror. Another classroom, with quick thinking and
Speaker 1: desperate strength, barricaded its doors with desks and chairs, a
Speaker 1: makeshift fortress against the storm. One teacher, hearing the commotion,
Speaker 1: bravely left his classroom to investigate, only to be shot
Speaker 1: in the chest. His students, with remarkable courage, pulled him
Speaker 1: back into the classroom, using their own shirts to stem
Speaker 1: the bleeding, barricading the door and fighting for his life
Speaker 1: even as their own trembled. At ten twenty am, the
Speaker 1: school officially entered lockdown. Law enforcement, their sirens now piercing
Speaker 1: the morning air, responded swiftly, arriving at ten twenty three am.
Speaker 1: A lockdown software a digital sentinel, caused the smartboards throughout
Speaker 1: the school to flash the words hard lockdown in large, red,
Speaker 1: unblinking letters. In the initial confusion, several students accustomed to
Speaker 1: drills thought this was just another exercise. But this nightmare,
Speaker 1: though devastating, was not prolonged. Within minutes, the school resource officers,
Speaker 1: with their training and courage, engage the suspect. Tommy, perhaps
Speaker 1: realizing the futility of his rampage, surrendered.
Speaker 8: I get on the radio and start saying, hey, we've
Speaker 8: got an active shooter apple Atchia High School, and God
Speaker 8: guided King and I down the right hall. There's all
Speaker 8: the smoking dust that starts billowing over and we'll here,
Speaker 8: I can't remember it's two or three shots. We could
Speaker 8: not see him except for a black silhouette in smoking dust.
Speaker 8: We start yelling some things that I'm not going to repeat,
Speaker 8: and I remember hearing this clack sound, and I assume
Speaker 8: it was just because he when he threw the gun down.
Speaker 8: By the time we get up to him, he's face
Speaker 8: down looking at the footage. You can see when we
Speaker 8: turn that corner and we start yelling, he stops the
Speaker 8: shots that he had. He was aiming to kill a
Speaker 8: student running down the no their hallway, and you can
Speaker 8: see this kid running down this hall and falling and
Speaker 8: looking back and trying to get up, and you see
Speaker 8: the shooter come up and point the gun to fire
Speaker 8: and he just stops. On camera. You watch him stop.
Speaker 8: He turns, puts the gun down and goes down. And
Speaker 8: that's because we turned and we started yelling down the
Speaker 8: hall and everything.
Speaker 1: The immediate aftermath was a scene of controlled chaos and
Speaker 1: heartbreaking tenderness. Students ushered to the football stadium found teachers
Speaker 1: their shirts now makeshift bandages tending to gunshot wounds, parents
Speaker 1: their faces showing pure fear. Streamed towards the school. Traffic
Speaker 1: backed up for more than a mile. It was a
Speaker 1: desperate pilgrimage to reunite with their children. The football field,
Speaker 1: usually a place of triumph and cheers, became a field
Speaker 1: of tears, embraces, and a profound, overwhelming relief mixed with
Speaker 1: the crushing weight of what had been lost in the
Speaker 1: wake of such violence. Numbers became names, and names became stories,
Speaker 1: each a universe of love, laughter, and unfulfilled dreams. Four souls,
Speaker 1: vibrant and unique, were stolen from their loved ones on
Speaker 1: that day. Mason Alexander Shermerhorn, a mere fourteen years old,
Speaker 1: was a ninth grade student from winder Georgia, born on
Speaker 1: May twenty seventh, twenty ten. Mason, like so many boys
Speaker 1: his age found joy in the digital realms of video games,
Speaker 1: his heart particularly captured by the intricate worlds of Kingdom Hearts.
Speaker 1: He harbored a special affection for Disney World, a place
Speaker 1: of magic and wonder, and found quiet satisfaction in the
Speaker 1: ticulous construction of Lego. But above all, his family, a
Speaker 1: constellation of love and support, meant the world to him.
Speaker 1: His absence left a void, a silence where once there
Speaker 1: was the joyful click of Lego bricks and the soft
Speaker 1: glow of a gaming screen. Christian Angelo, also fourteen, was
Speaker 1: a fellow ninth grader at Appalachi High and shared the
Speaker 1: same tender age as Mason and the same cruel fate.
Speaker 1: His parents, immigrants from Mexico, had built a life for
Speaker 1: their family in this new land, filled with the hope
Speaker 1: of a brighter future. Christian was, by all accounts, a
Speaker 1: very good kid, his nature sweet and carrying a gentle soul,
Speaker 1: navigating the complexities of adolescence. In the aftermath, his oldest sister,
Speaker 1: with a strength born of grief, set up a GoFundMe,
Speaker 1: a digital plea for help that resonated across the nation,
Speaker 1: raising over two two hundred and seventeen thousand dollars for
Speaker 1: funeral expenses. A testament to the collective sorrow and generosity
Speaker 1: of strangers. Richard Ricky Aspinwall the Second, thirty nine years old,
Speaker 1: was born on June fifteenth, nineteen eighty five, in Riverdale, Georgia.
Speaker 1: Ricky was more than just a teacher. He was a
Speaker 1: force of nature, a beloved coach whose passion for football
Speaker 1: had been a lifelong companion, from his own playing days
Speaker 1: to his fervent support for the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Longhorns.
Speaker 1: He graduated from Rome High School in two thousand and
Speaker 1: three and pursued his education at Valdosta State University, where
Speaker 1: he majored in accounting, though his true calling in the classroom,
Speaker 1: it was at Valdosta State in two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: that he met Shana, the love of his life, his
Speaker 1: future wife, whom he married in twenty sixteen. Ricky was
Speaker 1: renowned for his infectious dance moves, his booming singing voice,
Speaker 1: his impressive eating habits, and most profoundly, his unparalleled ability
Speaker 1: to make everyone feel like they had a true friend
Speaker 1: in him. He earned both his master's and specialist degrees
Speaker 1: in education, pouring his heart into creating a fun classroom
Speaker 1: for his students, fostering a positive sense of community that
Speaker 1: extended far beyond academics. His family was his pride and joy.
Speaker 1: A devoted husband and a loving girl. Dad to his
Speaker 1: two little girls. He found simple pleasures in working on
Speaker 1: home projects, cheering on the braves at games, golfing, and
Speaker 1: cherishing time with his friends. His death left a gaping hole,
Speaker 1: not just in his family, but in the vibrant tapestry
Speaker 1: of the school community he so deeply enriched. Christina Ermi
Speaker 1: fifty three years old, a beloved teacher, wife, daughter, and
Speaker 1: friend whose life was a testament to dedication and service.
Speaker 1: She had devoted her entire life to teaching, a calling
Speaker 1: she pursued with unwavering commitment. Her mother, living in Romania,
Speaker 1: remained a cherished connection to her roots. Christina and her
Speaker 1: husband had emigrated to the US more than two decades ago,
Speaker 1: building a new life while holding on to their heritage.
Speaker 1: She volunteered countless hours, not only teaching children traditional Romanian dances,
Speaker 1: but also patiently tutoring them in math and nurturing young
Speaker 1: minds with both cultural richness and academic rigor. She was
Speaker 1: a familiar comforting presence in the church kitchen, joining other
Speaker 1: women to prepare traditional meals, her hands busy with the
Speaker 1: work of community and sustenance. Christina Ermy was a quiet
Speaker 1: pillar of strength and kindness. In her absence left a
Speaker 1: profound silence in the lives she touched. To understand the
Speaker 1: horror of that day, one must, however, reluctantly delve into
Speaker 1: the shadowed path of Tommy, a boy whose life, even
Speaker 1: at fourteen, was already a tangled knot of neglect, violence,
Speaker 1: and missed opportunities. For three years preceding the shooting, his
Speaker 1: family had been a revolving door for Georgia child welfare workers,
Speaker 1: a grim procession of interventions that never quite managed to
Speaker 1: untangle the deep seated departments and two local police agencies,
Speaker 1: each interaction of flashing red light on a road leading
Speaker 1: inexorably towards disaster. In August twenty twenty one, a chilling
Speaker 1: premonition surfaced. Tommy, then just eleven, allegedly searched the end
Speaker 1: Internet for ways to murder his father using a school device.
Speaker 1: The search was flagged a digital alarm bell ringing in
Speaker 1: the quiet halls of the school. Two school resource officers
Speaker 1: following protocol, went to Tommy's home, speaking with him and
Speaker 1: his father. It was a moment, perhaps when the trajectory
Speaker 1: could have been altered.
Speaker 4: Whom their type is gone by. So did your dad
Speaker 4: cand of explain everything to you? Said something the bugs,
Speaker 4: we'll shoot down to school, maybe they mishurt somebody else.
Speaker 4: He gets flustered and under pressure. He doesn't really think straight.
Speaker 5: We talk about it quite a bit, and all the
Speaker 5: school shootings, things that happened.
Speaker 2: Let's see, he's getting picked on at school.
Speaker 8: You never really know, and I don't want anything to
Speaker 8: happen to him, the mad.
Speaker 5: Schools, And I had fruit ins like I necessarily have
Speaker 5: a reason that I would say that I'm gonna be
Speaker 5: mad as hell if he did, And then all the
Speaker 5: guns will go and they won't be accessible. Now if
Speaker 5: he knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can
Speaker 5: do and how to use.
Speaker 4: Them and not use it.
Speaker 2: I got to take it into word. And I hope
Speaker 2: you be in honest with me.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm not saying you're life.
Speaker 2: But it's it's a serious thing.
Speaker 1: A family member later revealed a pattern of violence, stating
Speaker 1: that Tommy's father had repeatedly beaten the boy, a grim
Speaker 1: backdrop to the child's disturbing online searches. The cycle of
Speaker 1: violence continued. In September twenty twenty one, Tommy's maternal grandmother,
Speaker 1: a woman perhaps desperate to protect her grandchild, reported her
Speaker 1: own daughter, his mother, to the Georgia Division of Family
Speaker 1: and Children's Services, the allegation his mother had struck the
Speaker 1: boy about six times. CPS recommended that he move in
Speaker 1: with his paternal grandmother, and his mother was mandated to
Speaker 1: undergo regular drug testing, a sign of deeper issues festering
Speaker 1: beneath the surface, the instability persisted. On October thirty, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, a neighbor witnessed a harrowing scene around eleven pm.
Speaker 1: Tommy and his sister were hit by their mother and
Speaker 1: forced out of the house. The neighbor, a silent witness
Speaker 1: to the escalating chaos, called CPS. Then came the Discord Threats,
Speaker 1: a digital echo chamber of dark fantasies. In May twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, a complaint surfaced alleging Tommy had made school
Speaker 1: shooting threats on the online platform. FBI agents from the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Field Office and deputies from the Jackson County Sheriff's
Speaker 1: office descended upon Tommy's home, prompted by anonymous tips to
Speaker 1: the FBI's National Threat Operations Center. The boy, in a
Speaker 1: series of evasive answers, denied making threats, denied knowing discord,
Speaker 1: and then admitted to an account that was deleted, then
Speaker 1: claimed it was hacked. His father, seemingly oblivious or in denial,
Speaker 1: told investigators he owned hunting rifles, but insisted his son
Speaker 1: didn't have unsupervised access. Crucially, photos from the Discord report
Speaker 1: depicting two weapons were never shown to the father for authentication.
Speaker 1: After the shooting, the FBI would issue a statement, a
Speaker 1: cold official post mortem quote at the time, there were
Speaker 1: no probable cause for an arrest or to take any
Speaker 1: additional law enforcement action on the local, state, or federal levels.
Speaker 1: But the Discord comments themselves painted a portrait of a
Speaker 1: mind steeped in violence and hatred. The user's name written
Speaker 1: in Russian translated ominously to the last name of the
Speaker 1: Sandy Hook shooter, a detail the father dismissed, claiming his
Speaker 1: son didn't speak or understand Russian. The messages were dark
Speaker 1: quote I'm committing a mass shooting and I'm waiting a
Speaker 1: good two to three years, plans to target an elementary school,
Speaker 1: and a deluge of anti lgbtqia plus and anti Semitic words.
Speaker 2: Quote let me give you an example of why I'm
Speaker 2: doing this. I need to put an end to that.
Speaker 2: I'm on the edge of an LGBTQ massacre.
Speaker 1: One message declared. He even posted photos of guns. His father,
Speaker 1: confronted with these disturbing revelations, told investigators his son was
Speaker 1: going through a lot and found it very difficult for
Speaker 1: him to go to school and not get picked on.
Speaker 1: He vehemently denied his son had that unsupervised access to firearms,
Speaker 1: dismissing the investigation as quote bullshit. Yet one investigator, with
Speaker 1: a prescient warning, urged the father to keep his firearms
Speaker 1: locked away and to keep his son out of school
Speaker 1: until the matter was resolved, which was a warning unheeded.
Speaker 1: The instability of his home life continued its churning. In
Speaker 1: the fall of twenty twenty three, Tommy moved back in
Speaker 1: with his mother in Fitzgerald, Georgia. Around this time, she
Speaker 1: began using methamphetamine, a fact she later admitted. Her drug
Speaker 1: use led to another intervention after she failed a random
Speaker 1: drug test Tommy and his siblings were sent back to
Speaker 1: their father in Bethlehem, Georgia. The family drama escalated again
Speaker 1: to a terrifying crescendo. On November three, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: Tommy's mother, in a moment of terrifying delusion, taped her
Speaker 1: own mother, Tommy's grandmother, to a chair. She then declared
Speaker 1: her intention to drive to Bethlehem to kill Tommy and
Speaker 1: his father. She was found and arrested at a local
Speaker 1: walmart with notes about her vehicle and its grim testament
Speaker 1: to her suicidal ideations. In a chilling detail, she expressed
Speaker 1: a desire to see two of her three children, but
Speaker 1: explicitly excluded Tommy. She was later sentenced to time served
Speaker 1: for a family violence while a false imprisonment charge remained pending.
Speaker 1: Serving her time in a Barrow County jail. The summer
Speaker 1: before the shooting offered yet more red flags. In August
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, Tommy expressed a disturbing fascination with the
Speaker 1: Parkland shooter to his grandmother. In this same month, his
Speaker 1: maternal aunt and grandmother, perhaps sensing the approaching storm, told
Speaker 1: others that Tommy was having homicidal and suicidal thoughts. They
Speaker 1: voiced their grave concern that he should not have a gun.
Speaker 1: Therapy was scheduled a glimmer of hope, but it too
Speaker 1: was extinguished. The grandmother who was supposed to take him
Speaker 1: was injured and had surgery on the day of his appointment.
Speaker 1: She begged him to go alone, but he refused, and
Speaker 1: his parents tragically failed to take him. He never attended.
Speaker 1: Tommy's academic life was equally adrift. He did not attend
Speaker 1: a single day of school during the entire twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three to twenty four school year, despite being ready registered
Speaker 1: at a local middle school. Yet despite never completing eighth grade,
Speaker 1: he was allowed to start ninth grade at Appalachi High School,
Speaker 1: a systemic failure that placed a deeply troubled boy into
Speaker 1: a new, potentially overwhelming environment. In his bedroom, there was
Speaker 1: a chilling tableau to discover a shrine on the wall
Speaker 1: behind his computer, adorned with pictures and newspaper clippings about
Speaker 1: school shooters, prominently featuring images of the Parkland shooter. Teachers
Speaker 1: at Appalachi described him as a quiet student, a silence
Speaker 1: that perhaps hid something raging within the weapon itself, the
Speaker 1: instrument of such devastation was a Christmas present. In December
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, Tommy's father, even after being interviewed by
Speaker 1: the FBI and local law enforcement about his son's violent
Speaker 1: online threats, purchased the AR fifteen style weapon for his son.
Speaker 1: It was a gift that would well. It would ultimately
Speaker 1: claim four lives. A former neighbor, a silent observer of
Speaker 1: the family's turmoil, told reporters that police and child services
Speaker 1: were regular visitors to the home. She recalled nights when
Speaker 1: Tommy's mother would lock him and his sister out of
Speaker 1: the house, the children's desperate cries of mom echoing through
Speaker 1: the night as they banged on the back door, weeping.
Speaker 1: She remembered the children never having clean clothes, the picture
Speaker 1: of neglect. Tommy's mother, forty three years old, carried a
Speaker 1: lengthy criminal record domestic violence, drug possession, property damage, in
Speaker 1: driving under the influence. Father, in a desperate attempt to explain,
Speaker 1: reported that he had introduced his son to hunting and guns,
Speaker 1: hoping to divert his attention from video games. Eviction records
Speaker 1: from two years prior revealed the father owned several weapons,
Speaker 1: including an AR fifteen style rifle. The father also claimed
Speaker 1: his son had been picked on during the last three
Speaker 1: months of the school year, causing him trouble concentrating on exams.
Speaker 1: Tommy's aunt, a voice of reason in this sea of denial,
Speaker 1: had been begging the family for months to get Tommy
Speaker 1: mental help, lamenting that the adults around him had failed him,
Speaker 1: and finally, the testament to his intent a notebook found
Speaker 1: in his bedroom. It contained an estimated casualty count and
Speaker 1: meticulous sketches of the hallway and classroom where the shooting
Speaker 1: took place. There was also a drawing, crudely rendered yet
Speaker 1: horrifyingly clear, showing stick figures in a school shooting bullets
Speaker 1: tearing through bodies. One note unambiguously declared, shoot the teacher.
Speaker 1: A dead stick figure lay on the ground in the drawing,
Speaker 1: a premonition of the lives he would extinguish. A letter
Speaker 1: found on the table in the shooter's home offered a
Speaker 1: final disturbing glimpse into his mind quote, just know it's.
Speaker 2: Not your fault. You tried your heart. It's forgive me
Speaker 2: as for what I'd done done is out of my control.
Speaker 1: In the grim aftermath, the wheels of justice began to
Speaker 1: turn albeit slowly, against the backdrop of unimaginable grief. Tommy,
Speaker 1: a boy who had irrevocably crossed a line into adulthood
Speaker 1: through his heinous acts, was charged as an adult with
Speaker 1: four counts of felony murder. Less than thirty six hours
Speaker 1: after the shooting. His father, too, faced the consequences of
Speaker 1: his actions or inactions. He was arrested in charge with
Speaker 1: four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second degree murder,
Speaker 1: and eight counts of cruelty to children in the second degree.
Speaker 1: Authorities asserted that the father had knowingly allowed his son
Speaker 1: to possess the very weapon used in the shooting, a
Speaker 1: devastating indictment of parental responsibility. Amidst the sorrow, there were
Speaker 1: also glimmers of what went right, of systems that, in
Speaker 1: the face of ultimate failure, still managed to mitigate the catastrophe.
Speaker 1: Simately a week prior to the shooting, the school that
Speaker 1: implemented a new security system, including the Scientigic system. This
Speaker 1: was no small investment, a five year contract priced at
Speaker 1: about one million dollars, with eight hundred thousand dollars of
Speaker 1: its sourced from a state school security grant designed to
Speaker 1: equip all seventeen schools in the district, plus other buildings
Speaker 1: with alert buttons. Experts in their analysis credited this system
Speaker 1: for working exactly as it should have, and also lauded
Speaker 1: the school resource officers who, with remarkable speed and courage
Speaker 1: rushed to the scene and quickly took the shooter into custody.
Speaker 1: A school safety expert highlighted another crucial element, the automatically
Speaker 1: locking doors, which prevented Tommy from entering more classrooms undoubtedly
Speaker 1: saved countless lives in the face of such overwhelming tragedy.
Speaker 1: These small victories, these moments of effective response, offered a
Speaker 1: faint flicker of hope that perhaps, just perhaps, lessons could
Speaker 1: be learned and future horrors averted. The sun now sets
Speaker 1: over Appalachi High as it always does, casting long shadows
Speaker 1: across the empty football field where parents once reunited with
Speaker 1: their terrified children. The school stands a silent monument to
Speaker 1: the day that will forever live in infamy. The grass,
Speaker 1: once trampled by the desperate rush of feet, grows green again,
Speaker 1: but the scars on the community, on the hearts of
Speaker 1: those who lost so much, will never truly heal. This
Speaker 1: is not merely a report of facts and figures, but
Speaker 1: a lament for lives cut short, for innocence lost, and
Speaker 1: for the profound aching questions that linger in the air
Speaker 1: like the scent of smoke after a fire. Why were
Speaker 1: so many warning, so many cries for help unheard or unheeded?
Speaker 1: How could a system designed to protect children fail so astrophically?
Speaker 1: What confluence of neglect, mental anguish, and easy access to
Speaker 1: weapons led a fourteen year old boy to commit such
Speaker 1: an unspeakable act. The story of Appalachi High is a
Speaker 1: reminder that the shadows of violence often gather long before
Speaker 1: the storm breaks, in the quiet corners of troubled homes,
Speaker 1: in the unaddressed cries of a child, in the chilling
Speaker 1: whispers of online threats. It is a call to look closer,
Speaker 1: to listen harder, to act with greater urgency and compassion,
Speaker 1: for in the heart of every community, in every school,
Speaker 1: lies the fragile promise of tomorrow, and it is our
Speaker 1: collective responsibility to protect that promise, to ensure that the
Speaker 1: echoes of terror from Appalachi High serve not as a
Speaker 1: final chord, but as a solemn, urgent plea for a safer,
Speaker 1: more vigilant world. That brings us to the close of
Speaker 1: this episode of Active Shooter. Remember your vigilance can be
Speaker 1: a lifeline. If you see something, please say something. There's
Speaker 1: truly no telling how many lives you might save. And
Speaker 1: don't forget to connect with us on social media. You
Speaker 1: can find us on Facebook at Active Shooter the Podcast
Speaker 1: and on x at podcast Active. Stay safe out there,
Speaker 1: and thank you for listening. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: today's episode of Active Shooter the Podcast. Remember, if you
Speaker 1: see something, say something, there's no telling how many lives
Speaker 1: you may be saving. A big thank you to Darren Curtis,
Speaker 1: who composed some of the songs on our show. You
Speaker 1: can find him online at www dot Darrencurtis music dot com.
Speaker 1: Make sure to check us out on social media. You
Speaker 1: can find us on Facebook at Active Shooter the Podcast,
Speaker 1: and on Twitter at podcast Active. Thank you and be safe.
Speaker 8: Free audio post production
Speaker 2: Byowphonic dot com.