Georgia shooting suspect and father to remain in custody | News, Sports, Jobs

WINDER, Ga. — The 14-year-old suspect in a shooting that killed four people at a Georgia high school and his father, who was arrested for allowing his son to have a gun, will remain in custody after their attorneys decided not to seek bail Friday.

Colt Gray, who has been charged with four counts of murder, is accused of using a semi-automatic assault rifle to kill two classmates and two teachers Wednesday at Apalachee High School in Winder, near Atlanta. His father, Colin Gray, faces similar charges in the latest attempt by prosecutors to hold parents accountable for their children’s actions in school shootings.

“You don’t have to be physically injured to be a victim,” District Attorney Brad Smith said in Barrow County Court. “Everybody in this community is a victim. Every kid in that school was a victim.”

The father and son appeared Friday morning before about 50 spectators in the courtroom, where staffers had placed boxes of tissues along the benches, in addition to members of the media and sheriff’s deputies. Some of the victims’ family members in the front row hugged each other, and one woman held a stuffed animal.

At his hearing, Colt Gray, dressed in khaki pants and a green shirt, was informed of his rights and the charges and penalties he faced in the shooting at his school. He was escorted out in handcuffs and ankle restraints.

The judge then recalled the teenager to court to correct an earlier error that his crimes could be punished by death. As a juvenile, the maximum sentence he faces is life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Shortly afterward, Colin Gray was brought into court, dressed in a gray-striped prison uniform. Colin Gray, 54, was charged Thursday in connection with the shooting and answered questions in a barely audible voice, giving his age and saying he had completed Grade 11, which earned him a high school equivalency diploma.

Colin Gray has been charged with manslaughter and second-degree murder in connection with the shooting. Arrest warrants state that he caused the deaths of others “by providing a firearm to Colt Gray knowing that he posed a threat to himself and others.”

The charges come five months after Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first to be convicted in a U.S. school shooting. They were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for failing to secure a gun in their 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 reignited debate over safe gun storage laws and left parents wondering how to talk to their children about school shootings and trauma.

The father and son interviews came as police in Dunwoody, an Atlanta suburb, said schools in that city 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 against schools across the state this week.

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