In rare move, Georgia arrests father of teen suspected in school shooting

[September 06, 2024]  By Rich McKay

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Georgia state officials on Thursday arrested the father of the 14-year-old suspected in a school shooting that killed four people and wounded nine others on Wednesday, saying the father knowingly allowed his son to have the murder weapon.

Colin Gray, 54, was charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said.

"These charges stem from Mr. Gray knowingly allowing his son Colt to possess a weapon," Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, told a press conference.

Colt Gray, 14, has been charged with four counts of felony murder and would be tried as an adult, officials said. His arraignment is set for Friday morning before a Georgia Superior Court judge in Barrow County by video camera.

Georgia state and Barrow County investigators say the younger Gray used an "AR platform style weapon," or semiautomatic rifle, to carry out the attack in which two teachers and two 14-year-old students were killed.

It remained unclear exactly how the son came into possession of the weapon.

Investigators have yet to comment on what may have motivated the first U.S. campus mass shooting since the start of the school year.

The shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, a city of 18,000 some 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Atlanta, revived both the national debate about gun control and the outpouring of grief that follows in a country where such attacks occur with some regularity.

Officials identified those killed as two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and two teachers, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53.

Two teachers and seven students were wounded in the attack, some of whom have been released from the hospital, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told reporters.

"The nine injured, I am very happy to say, will make a full recovery," Smith told reporters.

PARENTS HELD RESPONSIBLE

The charging of the father could represent a new strategy in America's halting attempt to control the epidemic of school shootings.

In April, the mother and father of a Michigan teen were sentenced to between 10 and 15 years in prison after a jury had convicted them of manslaughter after their son shot and killed four classmate. It was believed to be the first time parents were held legally responsible for their children's action in a school shooting.

Experts and gun safety advocates said the Michigan case was an important step in holding gun-owning parents more accountable for school violence carried out by their children.

People attend a vigil at Jug Tavern Park following a shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, U.S. September 4, 2024. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

In Georgia, both of the Colts were interviewed in May 2023 by officials in a neighboring county in connection with online threats about carrying out a school shooting made on the gaming social-media platform Discord, according to investigators.

The Grays told the Jackson County Sheriff's Department they had not made the threats. The father also said he had hunting guns locked in a safe in the house and his son did not have access to them.

Jackson County investigators closed the case after being unable to substantiate that either Gray was connected to the Discord account, and did not find grounds to seek the needed court order to confiscate the family's guns, according to police reports released by the sheriff's office on Thursday.

"This case was worked, and at the time the boy was 13, and it wasn't enough to substantiate," Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said in an interview. "If we get a judge's order or we charge somebody, we take firearms for safekeeping."

In the Michigan case, Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of Ethan Crumbley, who in 2021 shot and killed four classmates at Oxford High School, were found guilty of not securing guns in their home and of ignoring warning signs that their son was mentally disturbed.

Studies by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have shown that around 75% of all school shooters obtained their weapons at home.

The shooting was the first planned attack at a school this fall, said David Riedman, who runs the K-12 School Shooting Database. Apalachee students returned to school last month; many other students in the United States are returning this week.

The United States has seen hundreds of shootings inside schools and colleges in the past two decades. The carnage has intensified the debate over gun laws and the right granted in the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment "to keep and bear Arms."

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien, Liya Cui, Andrew Hay, Brad Brooks and Daniel Trotta; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Brad Brooks; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Mark Porter and Sonali Paul)

[© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.