When a gunman opened fire outside Stephanie Reyna’s classroom at Apalachee High School in Georgia, killing math teacher and football coach Richard Aspinwall, she said her classmates sprang into action, locking and barricading their door.
The chaos began when Reyna, 17, said her class “heard banging on the lockers right outside the classroom door.”
“My teacher, Coach Aspinwall, opened the door and ran outside to see what was going on,” she told ABC News.
Professor Richard Aspinwall of Apalachee High School.
Apalachee High School
“We heard popping noises,” Reyna said. “We stopped, we froze, we didn’t know what was happening. … So we all ran to the back of the classroom. We hid in a corner.”
Reyna said she and her 17 classmates had been lying on the floor for several minutes when they heard more popping noises.
“That’s when we realized our classroom door was still open,” Reyna said.
Then they saw Aspinwall on the ground, she said.
“He was right there in the doorway, laying there,” Reyna said. “He was trying to crawl towards us…we just think he was trying to get to us.”
Mourners pray during a candlelight vigil for students and teachers killed at Apalachee High School, September 4, 2024, in Winder, Georgia.
Mike Stewart/AP
Reyna said one of her classmates pulled Aspinwall’s body into their classroom and closed the door.
Other classmates began barricading the door with cabinets, desks and chairs, she said.
Once the door was secured, Reyna said she tried to console her classmates.
“We were all scared,” she said. “The best I could do was stay calm and tell everyone that everything is going to be okay and we’re going to get through this.”
Reyna said first responders then evacuated the students to another classroom before joining the rest of the school on the football field.
Students and parents leave the Apalachee High School campus after a shooting, September 4, 2024, in Winder, Georgia.
Mike Stewart/AP
Aspinwall, fellow teacher Christina Irimie and two students were killed in the shooting Wednesday morning in Winder. Nine others were injured.
The suspect, 14-year-old Colt Gray, a student at the school, surrendered to school resource officers and was taken into custody, authorities said.
Gray is charged with four counts of murder and will be tried as an adult, authorities said. The motive for the crime is not known.
ABC News
