In an ironic twist of events, Laila Sayarat ended up right next to the gunman, Colt gray just moments before the shootings at apalachee high school commenced. Such detailed narration gives insights into the ordinary, but creepy, foreboding moments right before the tragedy occurs. Expand the tragedy.
Sayarath is in junior high school and categorized Gray as a ‘quiet’ student. He engaged in truancy for a greater part of the school calendar year. Sayarat said that he did not stay much around and was able to take the classes few times. It was a word in the response,” She described him: Outside of school. She managed to ignore Becker’s ‘over-possessiveness’ towards ‘unwanted’ sculpture on her lap.
On the day of the shooting, Gray was a no-show in his algebra class at about 9:45 a.m in the last period before all hell broke loose. This day is not lost on Sayarat even as he believed that he did not attend today’s lessons as usual. “I did not think so, and did not pay attention to what was going around me,” she excuses herself.
Then the layer of tranquility before the pandemonium was burst by voices coming from a radio instructing the teachers to check their emails. Sayarat remembered that Gray came to the class’s door once again. But was surprised as a classmate opened the door and found him brandishing a gun. “He realized that we would not allow him in, and he began to shoot in the room adjacent to us,” Sayarat recounted.
Ardor and horror plague the scene as gunfire rings out. Sayarat recalled these details and said that the sound was, ‘Bullets you know, scared everyone down to the floor. We all crunched and grouped over one another for safety’. Her friend who was in the adjacent classroom and was bloodied and limping as I remember even her voice was filled with dread. “He was scared,” Sayarat said.
Fourteen year old Mason Schermerhorn becomes the bloodiest victim Becker would uncover- the most abused victim. During the shooting incident, Schermerhorn who was an autistic student was among the people who were shot. His family members spoke of their sorrows spilling over the deep vexation of the objects.
After shooting at least nine people, Gray surrendered to the police. Barrow County Sheriff Judd Smith stated that Gray followed orders from police officers and was prone on the ground.
The motive for the shooting remains unclear and the authorities are trying to ascertain how Gray acquired the firearm that was used in the attack. The names of the other three victims are still non-published.
It was almost a “ghost town” at the school before the chaos that erupted as the children run away from the school, and parents rushed to see where their children were. The shooting began at approximately 10.23 a.m. The routine activities of the inhabitants of the community came to a brutal end.
