{"id":10260,"date":"2024-09-06T12:41:23","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T12:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/colin-gray-father-of-us-school-shooting-suspect-charged-with-murder\/"},"modified":"2024-09-06T12:41:23","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T12:41:23","slug":"colin-gray-father-of-us-school-shooting-suspect-charged-with-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/colin-gray-father-of-us-school-shooting-suspect-charged-with-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"Colin Gray, father of US school shooting suspect, charged with murder"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Students and community members have gathered outside the school in the days following the shooting <\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The father of a 14-year-old boy accused of killing four people at a high school in the US state of Georgia has been arrested and charged with murder. <\/p>\n

Colin Gray, 54, is facing four charges of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight of cruelty to children.<\/p>\n

Officials said on Thursday evening the charges were directly connected to his son’s actions and “allowing him to possess a weapon”.<\/p>\n

The son, Colt Gray, is accused of killing two teachers and two students in Wednesday’s shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, near Atlanta.<\/p>\n

He is due in court on Friday charged – as an adult – with four counts of murder.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In Georgia, state law allows prosecutors to charge minors from age 13 as an adult in certain crimes.<\/p>\n

This means they face potentially more severe sentences if convicted. <\/p>\n

Authorities are investigating whether Colin Gray bought the AR-style weapon as a gift for his son in December 2023, law enforcement sources told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.<\/p>\n

The charges against the father are thought to be the most severe levelled against the parent in this kind of case.<\/p>\n

In May 2023, the FBI alerted local police to online threats about a school shooting, associated with an email address linked to the suspect.<\/p>\n

A sheriff’s deputy went to interview the boy, who was 13 at the time.<\/p>\n

His father told police he had guns in the house, but his son did not have unsupervised access to them, the FBI said in a statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Officials say the threats were made on Discord, a social media platform popular with video gamers, and contained images of guns.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

“I saw a kid with a gun” – How Georgia school shooting unfolded<\/figcaption><\/p>\n
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The account’s profile name was in Russian and translated to the surname of the attacker who killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.<\/p>\n

A police incident report describing last year’s interview with the boy and his father was released on Thursday.<\/p>\n

In the report, a deputy described the boy as “reserved” and “calm” and said he “assured me he never made any threats to shoot up any school”. <\/p>\n

They said he claimed to have deleted his Discord account because it was repeatedly hacked.<\/p>\n

Colin Gray also told police his son was getting picked on at school and had been struggling with his parents\u2019 separation.<\/p>\n

Police records reveal that the boy’s mother and father were in the process of divorcing, and he was staying with his father during the split.<\/p>\n

The teen often hunted with his father, who told police he had photographed his son with a deer\u2019s blood on his cheeks.<\/p>\n

The boy’s maternal grandfather told the New York Times<\/a> he partly blames the tumultuous home life after Mr Gray’s split from his daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand my grandson did a horrendous thing – there\u2019s no question about it, and he\u2019s going to pay the price for it,\u201d Charlie Polhamus told the newspaper.<\/p>\n

“My grandson did what he did because of the environment that he lived in,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Colin Gray has been arrested and charged with murder, among other offences<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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During the news conference on Thursday, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said all nine of those injured were expected to make a full recovery.<\/p>\n

Several victims had already left hospital, he said.<\/p>\n

Students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, died in the attack.<\/p>\n

Witnesses said the suspect left an algebra lesson on Wednesday morning only to return later and try to re-enter the classroom.<\/p>\n

Some students went to open the locked door, but apparently saw the weapon and backed away.<\/p>\n

Witnesses said they then heard a barrage of 10-15 gunshots. Two school police officers quickly challenged the boy and he immediately surrendered.<\/p>\n

These are not the first charges against the parents of a suspect in a school shooting.<\/p>\n

In April, the parents of a Michigan teenager who killed four students with a gun they bought for him just days before the shooting were sentenced for their role in the attack.<\/p>\n

James and Jennifer Crumbley were both found guilty of manslaughter and each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison.<\/p>\n

The case was widely reported to be the first time the parents of a child who had carried out a mass shooting were held criminally liable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Getty Images Students and community members have gathered outside the school in the days following the shooting The father of a 14-year-old boy accused of killing four people at a high school in the US state of Georgia has been arrested and charged with murder. Colin Gray, 54, is facing four charges of involuntary manslaughter, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10262,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10260\/revisions\/10262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}