'Hate will not prevail’: Sheriff gives emotional update about Georgia shooting

Law enforcement was on scene, as well as two school resource officers assigned here to the school. Who immediately encountered the subject within just minutes of this report going out. Once they encountered the subject, the subject immediately surrendered to these officers and he was taken into custody. Additionally, what I want you to know, as of now, there are four, individuals who are deceased from this incident. None that have been taken to local hospitals with various injuries. of those that are deceased, two were students and two were teachers here at the school. The priority right now for us within this investigation is to gather all the facts, to make sure that we're accurate with it, because this is a murder investigation. As the sheriff mentioned earlier this morning, the shooter is in custody. His name is Colt. That Colt gray. He is a 14 year old student here at the school GRA, where he is a 14 year old student here at the high school. Again, he has been taken into custody. he is. He will be charged with murder. And he will be tried as an adult and, handled as an adult. We are coordinating these charges, and obviously, this investigation with District Attorney Brad Smith, who was the district attorney for the Piedmont Judicial Circuit. circuit here. Since early this morning, we taught. We've had since the incident occurred, numerous interviews have been taking place through our investigation with students, faculty, as well as any other witnesses that we could identify. Law enforcement had a very, very swift response to this incident. Once the incident was was determined that there was a concern here, those resources, whether it was in that response or throughout this investigation to assist, came obviously from the sheriff's office here, from our other local law enforcement agencies, state law enforcement agencies, and the, federal law enforcement agencies as well. to include not to be left out. Multiple EMS personnel. Multiple fire personnel, in agencies. Those agencies responded here as well today. And I am extremely grateful, as I know the sheriff is, for that quick response and the partnerships of working here together, with what all is going on currently from the investigative perspective. We have crime scene agents and and other special agents from the GBI from close to a dozen of our different, work units from across the state, that have responded here today to work on this investigation again, collecting evidence, conducting interviews and so forth. I do want to pass this along, that if anyone has any information, that wants to be passed on concerning this investigation, they can do that. Anonymous anonymously at our tip line at one 800 597 tips or one 805 978477. They can also report this on by downloading the see something, send something out that can be done by Android or Apple phones. Either one to if they need to report any any tips concerning this investigation. let me close out before I turn this over to the sheriff and let you just remind you that this is still a very active investigation. There is still a lot that is very fluid. there's still a lot of interviews to be conducted. that will continue on into the night as well as is crime scene work and collecting and gathering evidence. But what more is more important for me to mention here to you is, is my heartfelt, sympathy to, the parents, the students that were that were here today. regardless of of where they were in the school, this has got a great impact, on them as well as on this community. my thoughts and prayers, along with everybody standing behind me and every law enforcement agency in this state, in many I will I will tell you around this country. they are in our thoughts and prayers, and we will continue with that. we ask for your patience. as we continue through this, and we'll continue to try to give you as many updates with information as we can to keep you informed. but thank you for being here. I'm now going to turn it over to Bexar County Sheriff. Judge me. Thank you. Ito. See what I can. Good afternoon. I'm Sheriff Judd Smith at the Bexar County Sheriff's Office. I never imagined. I never imagined that I would be speaking to the media in my career over something that happened today. The pure evil that happened today. I cannot thank the people behind me for the support they give me today. They give this office and give this staff. This. It's home for me. I was born and raised here. I went to school in the school system. My kids go to the school system. I'm proud of this school system. 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. It is very early as to what happened. Governor Kemp reached out to me and has provided me every single resource that he has to make sure justice prevails. I don't know why it happened. I might not ever know. We may not ever know. But I ask that you and our community lift up our schools, lift up our public safety, and that again, we do not let this hateful event prevail. As to what happened today. I want to thank the surrounding agencies and counties and cities and state and federal authorities have come and provided us. Because they prevented a lot of more tragic events from happening. Continue to lift up these families, continue to lift up our students and our kids and know that love will prevail.