Teen Charged in Georgia School Shooting and His Father to Stay in Custody After Hearings

By Associated Press

Published 12 months ago on

September 6, 2024

Teen suspect and father remain in custody after Georgia school shooting that left four dead and nine injured. (AP/Brynn Anderson)

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WINDER, Ga. — The 14-year-old suspect in a shooting that killed four people at a Georgia high school and his father will stay in custody after back-to-back court hearings Friday morning where their lawyers declined to seek bail.

At Colt Gray’s hearing, the teen was advised of his rights along with the charges and penalties he faced for the shooting at the school where he was a student.

After the hearing, he was escorted out in shackles at the wrists and ankles in khaki pants and a green shirt. The judge then called Colt Gray back to the courtroom to correct an earlier misstatement that his crimes could be punishable by death. Because he’s a juvenile, the maximum penalty he would face is life without parole. The judge also set another hearing for Dec. 4.

Shortly afterward, his father, Colin Gray, was brought into court. Colin Gray, 54, was charged Thursday in connection with the shooting for letting his son possess a weapon. Nine people were also hurt in Wednesday’s attack at Apalachee High School in Winder, outside Atlanta.

Colin Gray, dressed in a gray-striped jail uniform at Friday’s hearing, answered questions in a barely audible croak, giving his age and saying he finished 11th grade, earning a high school equivalency diploma.

About 50 onlookers were in the courtroom for the hearings, in addition to members of the media and sheriff’s deputies. Some family members of victims in the front row hugged each other and one woman clutched a stuffed animal. Before the hearings at the Barrow County courthouse, workers set out boxes of tissue along courtroom benches.

Details of the Shooting and Charges

According to arrest warrants obtained by The Associated Press, Colt Gray is accused of using a “black semi-automatic AR-15 style rifle” to kill two students and two teachers at the school. Authorities have not offered any motive or explained how he obtained the gun or got it into the school.

Colin Gray has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder related to the shooting, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said.

“His charges are directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon,” Hosey said.

It’s the latest example of prosecutors holding parents responsible for their children’s actions in school shootings. In April, Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting. They were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four students in 2021. The Georgia shootings have also renewed debate about safe storage laws for guns and have parents wondering how to talk to their children about school shootings and trauma.

Threats and Investigations

The morning hearings for the father and son came as police in the Atlanta suburb of Dunwoody said schools there and nationwide have received threats of violence since the Apalachee High School shooting, police said in a statement. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation also noted that numerous threats have been made to schools across the state this week.

Before Colin Gray’s arrest was reported, the AP knocked on the door of a home listed for him seeking comment about his son’s arrest.

Colt Gray was charged as an adult with four counts of murder in the deaths of Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53.

A neighbor remembered Schermerhorn as inquisitive when he was a little boy. Aspinwall and Irimie were both math teachers, and Aspinwall also helped coach the school’s football team. Irimie, who immigrated from Romania, volunteered at a local church, where she taught dance.

Colt Gray denied threatening to carry out a school shooting when authorities interviewed him last year about a menacing post on social media, according to a sheriff’s report obtained Thursday. Conflicting evidence on the post’s origin left investigators unable to arrest anyone, the report said. Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said she reviewed the report from May 2023 and found nothing that would have justified bringing charges at the time.

Broader Context of School Shootings

The attack was the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut; Parkland, Florida; and Uvalde, Texas. The classroom killings have set off fervent debates about gun control but there has been little change to national gun laws.

It was the 30th mass killing in the U.S. so far this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. At least 127 people have died in those killings, which are defined as events in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer — the same definition used by the FBI.