After Georgia Shooting, a Grief-Stricken City Seeks Solace, and Answers

At candlelight vigils and in Sunday church services, at fund-raisers for funerals and in quiet moments at home, another city began wrestling with a grief that has been inflicted on numerous American communities before it, a profound sorrow swirled with anger and confusion caused by a deadly mass shooting.

And now, those emotions in Winder, Ga., were streaked with budding doubts there had been missed opportunities to intervene before a gunman killed two students and two teachers last week at Apalachee High School.

Some in the community — including family members of victims, and students and parents at the school — expressed increased skepticism on Sunday about whether indications that the 14-year-old suspect was a threat had been adequately heeded by the teenager’s family, school officials and law enforcement officials.

The concern grew after reports emerged of the suspect’s mother calling the school roughly a half-hour before the authorities responded to the shooting, apparently to warn them.

“We believe it was preventable — 100 percent,” Lisette Angulo, the older sister of Christian Angulo, a 14-year-old boy who was killed, said of her and her family’s perspective in a message sent to The New York Times. “They knew of the situation beforehand,” she said, “and didn’t take proper action to prevent this tragedy from happening.”

Ms. Angulo praised the officers and emergency workers who responded to the shooting on Wednesday morning, namely the school resource officers to whom the suspect surrendered. They had acted “efficiently and appropriately,” she said.