Georgia state officials arrested Colin Gray, 54, the father of a 14-year-old boy suspected of carrying out a school shooting that left four people dead and nine others injured on Wednesday. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) stated that Gray knowingly allowed his son, Colt Gray, to possess the weapon used in the attack. Colin Gray faces multiple charges, including four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder, and eight counts of cruelty to children.
Colt Gray, 14, has been charged with four counts of felony murder and will be tried as an adult. His arraignment is scheduled for Friday morning in Barrow County, where the shooting took place at Apalachee High School, located in Winder, Georgia, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta. Authorities said Colt Gray used a semiautomatic rifle, an AR-platform style weapon, in the attack, but the specifics of how he obtained the gun remain unclear. The victims included two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and two teachers, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53.
Seven other students and two teachers were injured, with some already released from the hospital. Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith expressed relief that the injured victims are expected to recover fully.
The decision to charge the father highlights an evolving legal approach, similar to a recent case in Michigan. There, the parents of a teen who shot and killed four classmates were sentenced to 10-15 years in prison for manslaughter, marking a precedent in holding parents accountable for their children's involvement in school shootings.
In Georgia, the Grays had been interviewed earlier in 2023 regarding online threats made via the social media platform Discord. However, investigators could not connect the father or son to the account responsible for the threats and did not find sufficient grounds to confiscate the family's firearms. Colin Gray had claimed his hunting guns were securely locked in a safe.
This incident is the first major school shooting of the current academic year, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database. Experts note that a large number of school shooters, roughly 75%, obtain their firearms from home, reigniting the national debate over gun control and the Second Amendment.