14-year-old Suspect in Georgia School Shooting was Investigated by Authorities Last Year

Your weekly News Memo - a more human way to engage with the news.

In this week’s memo:

• 14-year-old Suspect in Georgia Shooting was Investigated by Authorities Last Year

• FBI’s Handling of Children Sex Offense Cases Continues to Fall Short

• GetSmart: 🕌 Technology Helps Us Hear the Acoustics of 6th Century Cathedral

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Newsbites

• Stat of the week: The percentage of U.S. workers employed in agriculture over time (1.6% in 2022)

  

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• Donald Trump released his economic plan on Thursday at the New York Economic Forum. Some highlights from the speech include appointing Elon Musk head of a government efficiency commission that would conduct “a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” and suggest “recommendations for drastic reform.” He also said he would reinstate tariffs on imported goods and give a 15% tax cut to corporations that make their products in the U.S. (video of speech)
  
  More: Trump added that he would ban home mortgages for illegal immigrants in an effort to lower housing prices for American citizens.

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• A photo of family members wearing “Nebraska Walz’s for Trump” t-shirts went viral on the internet this week. Initial rumors were that the group was Tim Walz’s parents and siblings. However, it was confirmed the individuals are distant cousins of Walz and don’t have contact with him. They are descendants of Francis Walz, the brother of Tim Walz’s grandfather. The Minnesota Governor’s older brother, Jeff Walz, has also made headlines for recent posts on Facebook in which he said he is “100% opposed to all his [brother’s] ideology” and was considering voting for Trump. Jeff, who said he hasn’t spoken to his brother in 8 years, later said he regrets using Facebook for the comments and didn’t intend to “influence the general public” regarding the election. He later said he has no plans to campaign for or against his brother.
  
  More: Since picking Tim Walz as her running mate, Kamala Harris’ poll numbers have declined in Minnesota.

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• X has been banned in Brazil following a ruling from the country’s supreme court. Users that try to access the platform using a VPN can face fines up to $9,000. X and Elon Musk have been fighting with Brazilian Judge Alexandre de Moraes since April after Musk ignored Moraes’ order to suspend certain X accounts in Brazil for spreading ‘disinformation’. Moraes also mandated that X appoint a legal representative for Brazil. The social media platform did not comply with the orders, which triggered its suspension.

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• Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, made his first public statement since being arrested by French authorities last week. In the post on Telegram, Durov acknowledged there is more the platform can do to prohibit criminal activity from being facilitated on the messaging app, but said the approach French authorities were taking was “misguided.” He added, “Sometimes we can’t agree with a country’s regulator on the right balance between privacy and security. In those cases, we are ready to leave that country. We've done it many times.”

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• Chinese Agent: Linda Sun, the former deputy chief of staff to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, was indicted this week on charges to advance Chinese interests while working for the New York State government since 2012. Her husband also faces charges. Sun, a Chinese-born American citizen, is accused of blocking meetings with Taiwanese officials, facilitating illegal visas to foreign personnel, and helping a Chinese official eavesdrop on a conference call with New York State administrators. In exchange, Sun and her husband received millions of dollars of kickback money from China.

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• Ford and Coors Light have stopped providing workplace data to the gay rights lobbying group Human Rights Campaign as they scale back their diversity initiatives. Other companies distancing themselves from HRC include Harley Davidson, Lowes, and Tractor Supply. HRC has long lobbied for big corporations to enact LGBTQ+ policies and provide an index score on how they are performing. The most controversial policy HRC pushes is health insurance for sex-reassignment surgery. Robby Starbuck, a conservative activist, has become well-known for his push to expose “woke” corporate policies and DEI initiatives. His videos and tweets are attributed in part to Tractor Supply and Deere apologizing to customers and stopping their programs.
  
  More: Here are a couple examples of the posts on X from Starbuck that have caused companies to drop their DEI initiatives: Harley Davidson, Tractor Supply, Coors Light

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Main Stories

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14-year-old Suspect in Georgia School Shooting was Investigated by Authorities Last Year

Editorial note: The News Memo chooses not to use the shooter’s name in an effort to avoid publicizing those that may be seeking attention.

What happened?
A 14-year-old shot and killed two fellow students, two teachers, and injured nine others at the Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia on Wednesday.

The suspected shooter, who used a semi-automatic assault rifle, surrendered at the scene and was immediately charged with murder.

One of the students, Lyela Sayarath, who sat next to the alleged shooter in algebra class, spoke with CNN. She said he left the classroom and sought to get back in but the doors to the classroom automatically lock. Because they suspected he might have a gun, they refused to let him back in. Moments later, they heard gunshots in the hallway while the shooter moved to a different classroom. 

Sayarath said the alleged suspect was “pretty quiet” and regularly skipped class. He would rarely talk and give short one word answers when he did.

Winder is a town about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, with a population of 18,000 people. The Apalachee High School has roughly 1,900 students. The community gathered to light candles and pray together following the shooting.

Troubled family life
The grandfather of the shooter said his grandson was greatly affected by the divorce of his parents, which entailed years of custody fights and parents calling law enforcement on one another. “His dad beat up on him, I mean, I’m not talking about physical, but screaming and hollering, and he did the same thing to my daughter,” the grandfather said. In one instance, the mother was charged for keying her husband's car.

Father bought gun for 13-year-old son in 2023
The father of the 14-year-old teen was charged on Thursday with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two accounts of second-degree murder, and eight counts of cruelty to children.

The director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said the father, 54, “knowingly allowed” his son to have a gun in his possession. The father told investigators he bought the gun as a present for his son in December 2023, just months after his son was investigated for a school shooting threat (more below).

Shooter was investigated in 2023 for threats
The then 13-year-old suspect was interviewed by the local sheriff’s department in May of 2023, after anonymous shooting threats were obtained by authorities on the messaging app, Discord.

The posts on Discord read: “im committing a mass shooting and im waiting a good 2-3 years.” It continued, “I cant kill myself yet, cause I’m not contributing anything to culture I need to go out knowing I did.” The post then had a photo of a gun with the caption, “I’m ready.”

The boy denied any involvement with the threat and no charges were brought at the time. He told the sheriff's department that “he would never say such a thing, even in a joking manner.” 

His father, who was also interviewed a year ago, said his son “is allowed to use them [guns] when supervised but does not have unfettered access to them.” He also told investigators that his son was often picked on at school and was going through a difficult time during his parents’ divorce.

Conflicting evidence in May of 2023 led to no charges. Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said after looking back, there was no evidence that would have warranted an arrest. “We did not drop the ball at all on this,” she said. “We did all we could do with what we had at the time.”

Documents found in home
Investigators say they have found documents they believe were from the 14-year-old boy that reference past school shootings, including the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018.

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FBI’s Handling of Children Sex Offense Cases Continues to Fall Short