‘Schools are supposed to be a safe place’: Friends remember beloved teachers gunned down in Georgia school

Ricky Aspinwall went by many titles — football coach, math teacher, father, husband, father — and after the Apalachee High School shooting, he was tragically given another: victim.

“[This shooting] makes every educator in the country more anxious because schools are supposed to be a safe place,” his best friend and fellow educator Nick Bach told The Independent.

A 14-year-old suspect armed with an assault-style rifle opened fire in his school’s hallways on Wednesday, killing Aspinwall, a 39-year-old math teacher and football coach, and three others. Nine others were injured and transported to the hospital. They are all expected to survive.

The alleged shooter, Colt Gray, was formally charged on Thursday with the murder of Aspinwall, math teacher Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Christian Angulo, 14, and Mason Schermerhorn, 14. This year alone, there have been 218 school shootings, according to K-12 School Shooting Database.

On Thursday evening Gray’s father was arrested in connection with the shooting at Apalachee High School, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Colin Gray, 54, has been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children.

Earlier on Thursday CNN reported that Colin Gray had told investigators he bought his son the assault rifle allegedly used to kill two students and two teachers as a Christmas present last year.

The purchase came months after the FBI told local law enforcement in May 2023 about anonymous online threats about a school shooting. Colt Gray denied he was behind them and no arrest or other legal action was taken.

Aspinwall and Bach met in 2013, when they started working together at Mountain View High School, Bach told The Independent.

“We immediately became great friends,” he said. Aspinwall had an impressive work ethic, showed great care for the kids on the team, and always went the extra mile in the workplace, showing up for students and faculty alike, Bach recalled.

“He would do all these extra little things around the workplace that most people don’t even think of doing,” Bach said. “Nobody ever had to tell him to do anything. If he saw something, he just did it.”

Over the five years they worked at Mountain View, they became closer friends, getting to know one another’s families.

Bach, who had young children at the time, said his daughter had an “absolute affinity” for “Ricky.”

“She absolutely adored him,” he added, recalling that she followed him around the fieldhouse and always played with him.

“He’s the nicest guy with the warmest heart ever,” Bach said. “When he wound up having his own daughters, it was the greatest blessing in the world because I knew he’d be so great at that.”

Knowing that his two daughters won’t ever see him again is the hardest part, Bach said.

Bach, now a coach at Pace Academy, called the shooting “sickening.” This incident “makes every educator in the country more anxious because schools are supposed to be a safe place.” He said he is praying that gun violence in schools stops.

Aspinwall touched so many lives in the coaching community across Georgia, Bach said: “Everybody’s hurting right now.”

Bach encouraged donations to be sent to a GoFundMe page in honor of his late friend. The earnings will go to Aspinwall’s wife Shayna and his two daughters.

Aspinwall’s colleague Cristina Irimie was also killed in Wednesday’s tragedy. The day she was shot, the math teacher brought in a cake and pizza for her students to celebrate her 53rd birthday, which had just happened.

Irimie was unable to have biological children of her own, but “she saw her students as her children... she really loved them,” Gabrielle Buth, Irimie’s relative, told The Independent in a message.

“Years ago, when she decided to go back to school to become a teacher we asked her why and she said she felt the calling to teach and care for children in her soul,” Buth continued. “To have one of her ‘own’ take her life is the most shocking thing to all this.”

Irimie’s family, most of which is in Romania, “is still in shock,” Buth said. Irimie leaves behind her husband.

“They only had each other here,” Buth explained.

Buth emphasized that she hopes Irimie is remembered for her dedication to her students, her “beautiful soul,” and her ebullient spirit. Buth called her the “cool aunt.”

“Cristina was a person who made you feel welcomed and important and she was so, SO funny. Just full of life. She was a traditional Romanian folk dancer,” she said. Irimie and her husband “were very integrated in the Atlanta Romanian Orthodox community.”