It was going to be a typical school day: walking into school with all your friends and chatting before the bell rings. When the bell rings, you start saying goodbye to your friends until lunch, like a typical day. However, for Aurora Algono, it was not a normal school day.
It was September 4th when Aurora walked into her first-period science class and sat down with her friends. She thought her first week at the school was going well. She had plenty of friends, and as she remembers, “It was around 10:20 when I heard a loud bang. It scared me a little because it sounded like a gunshot from the movies. Then an announcement went off. It said something along the lines of, ‘Check your email, teachers. This is a Code Orange.’”
Aurora’s teacher gathered them into the corner of the room and turned off the lights. “I looked for something sharp in my backpack and ended up holding my water bottle for protection in case something happened.” Other students did the same, using whatever they could find for defense and to shield themselves.
“I kept hearing screaming and gunshots,” Aurora recalls. The classroom right next door was broken into and shot up, and it was one of the classrooms where a teacher died. “I was really scared, but I was also in Georgia at a famous dance convention, taking mastery classes and doing auditions for Juilliard, which were hosted in Georgia. Since I had been gone for a while, my parents decided to switch my academics to a different school in Georgia. So, right after school, I had to go to a competition, and I didn’t think I could do it.”
Aurora’s classroom was close to the front of the school, which meant there was a higher chance of being broken into. “When I heard banging on the door, I thought it was over. I texted my mom and told her what was happening, but I had to put my phone away.” The shooter only tried to break in for about five seconds. When he didn’t succeed, he moved on to the next door—the door right next door.
About 10 minutes later, the gunshots stopped. Was it over? The screams of horror continued long after the bullets stopped. The shooter was eventually taken into custody. Aurora texted her mom to let her know the shooting was over, and her mom came to pick her up. Aurora explained, “Nobody I knew closely died, but I do know a few people who are friends with people who got hurt, though not many people died. I think it was around two teachers and two students, but I’m not sure. I also don’t know the reason why he shot up the school. There was really no clear reason for it, but it was a very scary time, and I will never forget it.”
The shooter, Colt Gray, 14, had been enrolled at the school on August 14 and had already missed nine days of classes leading up to the shooting. He also brought his father with him, and both were suspects in the attempt to kill several people and injure others. Aurora eventually moved back to her home country. “I was born in Australia, and I live there now. My parents decided it would be best to cancel the auditions and just go back home to Australia, where I got enrolled in a dance academy. But I will be going to Juilliard this summer because I got an opportunity from a dance convention.”
This all happened at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, Georgia, on September 4th, 2024.