The 14-year-old student who killed four of his schoolmates in US’s Georgia was questioned last year by police about online threats, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said.

In May 2023, Colt Gray was questioned by police who believed he was behind internet posts that contained images of guns, warning of a school shooting.

The FBI said its National Threat Operations Center had alerted local law enforcement after receiving tips about “online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location and time”.

After the location of the threats were determined, the police interviewed the teen and his father.

While the teen denied sending the threats, his father told police that he had hunting guns in the house but the then 13-year-old “did not have unsupervised access to them”.

“At the time, there was no probable cause for an arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action on the local, state or federal levels,” the FBI said in a statement.

On Wednesday, the boy used an assault rifle to open fire in Apalachee High School, killing two teachers and two student, investigators say. 

Eight other students and one teacher were injured in the attack. Gray was arrested from the school premises and will be tried as an adult.

The school sent out a message to parents saying it was “currently in a hard lockdown after reports of gunfire.”

Survivors recounted the moment when Gray began attacking the students. One student told BBC that she saw him leave a class after a maths lesson and when he returned he had a gun in his hand. One of her classmates saw the gun and refused to open the door for Gray even as he continued to pound on it.

Gray then moved to the next classroom and opened fire.

According to the BBC, this was the 23rd US school shooting of 2024. So far 11 people have died and 38 have been injured in such attacks this year.

Washington:

Four people were killed and three others injured in a shooting at a home in Kentucky in the US on Saturday, police said. According to the Florence Police Department, four individuals were declared dead at the location, while three others were taken to a nearby hospital and are currently in critical but stable condition.

Officers responded to the residence at nearly 3 am on Saturday and as they approached the home, they still heard shots being fired, Police Chief Jeff Mallery said at a press conference. People were attending a birthday pool party at that time.

The suspect, described as an adult male, fled the scene in a vehicle prior to police arrival, leading to a police chase. The suspect then drove off the road and crashed into a ditch. Law enforcement found the suspect with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was transported to a nearby hospital, where he was later pronounced dead, Xinhua news agency reported.

Party attendees recognised the suspect and provided his identity to the police. According to Mallery, he had a prior conviction for a sexual offence, though it does not appear to be connected to the shooting.

Officials said that an initial investigation indicated the suspect acted alone, and there was no danger to the public.

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Lewiston, United States:

Police in Maine said Saturday that the man who gunned down 18 people at a bar and a bowling alley and later committed suicide, suffered serious mental health issues, but was able to buy weapons legally because he had never been forcibly committed to treatment.

The body of Robert Card, a 40-year-old army reservist, was discovered Friday night inside a tractor trailer near a recycling center where he used to work, said Maine public safety commissioner Mike Sauschuck. Card had shot himself.

Investigators are still struggling to determine Card’s motive for carrying out Wednesday’s massacre in the town of Lewiston.

However, Mike Sauschuck said that Card had reportedly been hearing voices and suffering from paranoia.

“Clearly there’s a mental health component to this,” Mr Sauschuck told reporters.

Investigators found a “paper-style” note that Card had left to a loved one which contained a password to his phone and bank account information, Mr Sauschuck said, adding that the note had the tone of a suicide letter.

Card was found in possession of three weapons, one of them a long gun, all purchased legally because he had never been forcibly committed to a mental institution.

Despite the apparently clear mental health issues and a reportedly recent psychiatric evaluation undergone by Card, “a background check is not going to ping that this individual was prohibited,” Mr Sauschuck added.

A ‘coward’s way out’

The discovery of Card’s body ended a massive two-day manhunt, which had this quiet city of 38,000 people on lockdown with businesses and schools closed and residents terrified.

Sauschuck acknowledged the help Card’s family provided to the investigation, saying among the first people to call the police and identify the suspect were his family members. “This family has been incredibly cooperative with us,” he said.

Lewiston finally breathed a sigh of relief with businesses beginning to open and people appearing on the streets Saturday.

Guadalupe Hursch, 49, a stay-at-home mother said she was happy that the ordeal was over. “Relieved. Relieved,” Hursch told AFP, adding that she also felt sorry for Card’s parents.

A local resident by the name of Danica who was buying coffee at a drive-in said she was “very afraid” in the aftermath of the shooting and was now happy Card was dead, but at the same time wished he had first been brought to justice.

“I think he took the coward’s way out of doing it by suicide,” Danica, who declined to give her last name, told AFP. “I think he should be held accountable for his crimes.”

She added: “It’s a very terrible thing and it’s going to take a long time to get back up to be where we were before.”

In a statement issued shortly after Card’s body was discovered Friday night, President Joe Biden vowed to renew efforts to curb gun violence in the United States.

“Americans should not have to live like this,” Joe Biden said. “I will continue to do everything in my power to end this gun violence epidemic.”

President Biden said the shooting brought “a tragic two days — not just for Lewiston, Maine, but for our entire country.”

Authorities on Friday identified the victims, ranging from a husband and wife in their 70s, to a 14-year-old boy killed alongside his father.

This latest shooting is one of the deadliest in the United States since 2017, when a gunman opened fire on a crowded music festival in Las Vegas, killing 60 people

Mass shootings are alarmingly common in the United States, a country where there are more guns than people and where attempts to clamp down on their spread are always met with stiff resistance.

The United States has recorded over 500 mass shootings this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-governmental organization that defines a mass shooting as four or more people wounded or killed.

Efforts to tighten gun controls have for years run up against opposition from Republicans, staunch defenders of the constitutional right to bear arms.

The political paralysis endures despite widespread outrage over recurring shootings.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

US Vice President Kamala Harris took on a new role Friday fighting gun violence, a job likely to give her more visibility ahead of the 2024 election. The 58-year-old Democrat will head up the new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which will provide coordination on the issue but largely lacks any kind of enforceable power to tackle the scourge in a country that has more firearms than people. 

“We know true freedom is not possible if people are not safe,” Harris said in a statement announcing the new office. 

“We do not have a moment to spare nor a life to spare” while the United States is “torn apart” by gun violence, she said at the White House on Friday. 

“After every mass shooting, we hear a simple message, the same message all over the country,” she added, saying Americans are begging for their leaders to “‘do something, please do something.'”

Despite the new push, the White House does not have unilateral power to meaningfully limit gun use in the United States, such as by banning assault weapons. 

Any substantial moves would have to come from Congress, where fiercely anti-gun regulation Republicans control the House of Representatives. 

Biden has therefore tried to work around legislative requirements and imposed certain regulatory and administrative restrictions, which have only a limited scope. 

The new role adds a significant job to Harris’s portfolio just a little over a year ahead of the 2024 race, in which she and the 80-year-old president are facing re-election. 

The vice president has already been tasked with handling other politically sensitive issues such as immigration. 

Tackling gun violence gives the former California prosecutor the chance to work on a visible issue that often garners more widespread consensus from the American public. 

According to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-governmental organization, 44,374 people were killed by guns across the United States last year.

Gun deaths have slowed slightly this year, at 28,793 for the first eight months, according to the archive.

Harris — the first woman to become vice president as well as the first Black person and person of South Asian descent to hold the job — also recently embarked on the so-called Fight for Our Freedoms College Tour, in which she visited several US universities. 

She was generally received with enthusiasm, in contrast to her often-flagging favorability poll numbers. 

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