- Colt Gray’s father arrested for providing weapon used in shooting
- Colt killed four people at Georgia school
- Father faces murder, manslaughter, and child cruelty charges
The father of Georgia school shooter Colt Gray was arrested on counts including murder after it was revealed that he bought the AR-15-style rifle used by the 14-year-old to kill four people on campus.
Gray, 54, was arrested by local officials at 6:11 p.m. and charged with two counts of murder, four counts of involuntary manslaughter, and eight counts of cruelty to children. On Thursday night, the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office issued his mugshot.
Officials revealed in a press conference that the allegations stem from Colin ‘knowingly providing’ his son access to the firearm used in the shooting.
The 14-year-old was caught on Wednesday at Apalachee High School in Winder, only minutes after killing two pupils and two teachers with a semi-automatic rifle.
The father allegedly bought the deadly weapon as a Christmas present for his kid, barely months after the FBI paid them a first visit.
The family home was searched on Wednesday afternoon, and FBI agents seized firearms and evidence.
Neighbors observed Colin return to the family home on Wednesday evening, but it is unknown whether he turned himself in.
A neighbor told DailyMail.com that they were ‘terrified’ by the fresh allegations, adding that the family had ‘kept themselves to themselves’ and had not blended into the neighborhood during their two years on the home.
‘These accusations result from Mr. Gray’s intentionally enabling his son, Colt, to possess a handgun,’ GBI Director Chris Hosey stated at an evening news conference.
His allegations are directly related to the activities of his son and permitting him to hold a weapon.
In Georgia, second-degree murder is defined as causing the death of another person while committing second-degree cruelty to minors, regardless of intent.
It is punishable by 10 to 30 years in jail, whereas malice murder and criminal murder entail a life sentence. Involuntary manslaughter occurs when someone accidentally causes the death of another person.
It’s the latest instance in which prosecutors hold parents accountable for their children’s acts in school shootings.
Jennifer and James Crumbley, parents from Michigan, became the first to be convicted in a mass school shooting in April.
They were sentenced to at least ten years in jail for failing to secure a firearm at home and ignoring warnings of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four pupils in 2021.
The arrest happened after sources stated that the father-of-three gave the assault gun used in the massacre to his 14-year-old son for Christmas in 2023.
According to police, this occurred mere months after the adolescent and his father were investigated by local law officials in connection with online threats to carry out a school massacre on the gaming social media platform Discord.
The teen was interviewed after the sheriff received a report from the FBI that Gray, then 13, ‘had possibly threatened to shoot up a middle school tomorrow.’ According to the sheriff’s incident report, the threat was made on Discord, a prominent video gaming social media network.
According to the article, the FBI’s information led to a Discord account tied to Colt Gray’s email address. However, the youngster stated that he would never say such a thing, even jokingly, according to the investigator’s report.
According to the interview record, the teen said: ‘I swear I would never say something where…’, with the rest of the denial classified as inaudible.
The investigator stated that no charges were made due to ‘inconsistent information’ on the Discord account, which included Russian profile information and a digital evidence trail indicating it had been accessed in other Georgia locations as well as Buffalo, New York.
Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum stated that she studied the May 2023 report and found nothing that would have justified filing charges at the time.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Mangum stated, “We did not drop the ball at all on this.” We did what we could with what we had at the time.
According to authorities, the Discord account’s user name was written in Russian, and the translation of the letters spelled out the name Lanza, referring to Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy.
Gray denied he was the source of the threats, stating to authorities he had shut down his Discord server after being repeatedly hacked. He expressed fear that someone would make such claims against him.
‘He understands the gravity of guns, what they can do, and how to use and not use them,’ the father, Colin Gray, stated in a transcript released from the sheriff’s office.
Colin reportedly told authorities that he would be ‘ mad as hell’ if the allegations about his son making threats were accurate, and that ‘all the guns [would] go away.’
His aunt vowed ‘full throttle blood’ online, claiming he had been subjected to ‘abuse’ throughout his childhood. Those statements were removed last night following a torrent of criticism.
According to police papers provided by the sheriff’s office on Thursday, investigators terminated the case after being unable to prove Gray’s connection to the Discord account and finding no reason to seek the necessary court order to take the family’s guns.
The child reportedly had a fascination with previous infamous school shooters, like Parkland, Florida attacker Nikolas Cruz.
When he laid down his AR-style weapon, two pupils and two teachers had already died inside the school building.
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The victims were students Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and Christian Angulo, 14, as well as teachers Richard Aspenwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53.
When authorities examined the teen’s Georgia house after the killing, they reportedly discovered evidence that the boy was ‘obsessed’ with mass shootings, notably the Parkland massacre in 2018, which killed 17 people.
The FBI became aware of Gray after receiving several tips last year.
The child is still in juvenile prison in Georgia, with his first court appearance slated for Friday morning. Sheriffs said he would face adult charges.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith stated that when confronted by school resource officers on the scene, Gray promptly surrendered.
According to Sheriff Smith, Gray’s first ‘ real day’ at Apalachee High occurred on Wednesday.
He stated: ‘He was a brand new student at Barrow County Schools, having enrolled around two weeks prior. This was his second day of school. He’d been there before, but he left early that day, and this was his first full day.
According to police, Gray opened fire at 10:23 a.m., killing at least 13 individuals as frenzied scenes erupted inside the school.
Images showed pupils pouring out onto campus as frantic parents scrambled to find their children, with one mother describing the scene outside the school as ‘chaos.
A wreath and flowers were used to build a temporary memorial. On Thursday, families and kids visited the mournful scene to pay their condolences to those who died in the disaster.
