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By Giulia Carbonaro
Senior Reporter
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The mug shots have been released of 14-year-old Colt Gray and his father, both charged over the killing of two teachers and two students at Apalachee High School in Georgia on Wednesday.
Colt Gray allegedly went on a shooting rampage at the school in Winder, killing students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo and math teachers Richard Aspinwall and Christina Irimie, and wounding nine others.
He was arrested on Wednesday after surrendering to school resource officers and has now been charged as an adult with four counts of murder.
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The alleged shooter's father, 54-year-old Colin Gray, was later arrested and charged with two counts of second-degree murder, four counts of manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said.
GBI director Chris Hosey said the charges against the shooter's father were "directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon."
Both Colt Gray and Colin Gray were already on law enforcement's radar after the two were interviewed more than a year ago over threats the student was suspected of making on Discord, a communications platform often linked with gamers.
In May 2023, the F.B.I. was tipped off to a user making school shooting threats, and believed they had tracked them back to Colt Gray, who was 13 at the time.
The student and his father were interviewed by law enforcement, but the sheriff's report concluded that the alleged threats could not definitely be attributed to Colt Gray.
During the interview, Colin Gray told investigators that his son had been having a hard time in school, where he was picked on by other students. He said that the two of them had discussed gun safety and hunting, and that he would have been "mad as hell" if the boy had made threats online as suspected, The New York Times reported after seeing a transcript of the May 2023 interview.
"He knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do, and how to use them and not use them," Colin Gray said. During the interview, the boy claimed his account had been hacked.
Authorities said that Colt Gray used an "AR-platform style weapon" in the deadly shooting on Wednesday.
The 14-year-old is now expected to make his first court appearance on Friday. According to The Associated Press, he will appear by video from a youth detention facility for the proceedings at the Barrow County courthouse. His father's first appearance in court has not yet been set.
It's not the first time that law enforcement holds a parent responsible for the action of their kids.
In April, Jennifer and James Crumbley were convicted and sentenced to at least ten years in prison for not securing a gun at home and failing to address their son's deteriorating mental health. The two are the parents of Ethan Crumbley, the teenager—then 15—who shot and killed four of his classmates at Michigan's Oxford High School in 2021.
The teen was sentenced to life in prison without parole last year, plus an additional 24 years.
Update, 9/6/2024 4:45 a.m. ET: This breaking news article was updated to offer more details on the story.
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