Father of suspected school shooter arrested in Georgia

Colin Gray, 54, the father of Georgia school shooting suspect Colt Gray, has been arrested, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. announced on Thursday.

“These charges are based on his knowingly allowing his son, Colt, to possess a firearm,” GBI Director Chris Hosey said during a press conference Thursday evening.

According to the GBI, the 54-year-old is accused of four counts of manslaughter, two counts of premeditated murder and eight counts of child abuse.

The charges reportedly mark the second incident in U.S. history in which parents have been charged in connection with an alleged mass murder committed by a minor, following the previous indictment of the parents of Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley.

Colin’s son Colt, 14, has been charged with murder and will be tried as an adult.

Colin Gray reportedly purchased a high-powered AR-15-style rifle for Colt Gray as a Christmas present in 2023, which was later allegedly used in the Georgia shooting that killed four people and hospitalized nine others.

The purchase came months after federal and local authorities investigated online threats to carry out a school shooting allegedly traced to Colt Gray.

In May 2023, the FBI received a tip about online threats on the app Discord related to a school shooting. The threats were traced to Georgia and the information was forwarded to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, which interviewed the Gray family.

Colin Gray said he had hunting weapons in the house, but Colt did not have unsupervised access to them. Colt, meanwhile, denied making the online threats.

“Colt expressed concern that someone was accusing him of threatening a school shooting and stated that he would never say such a thing, even in jest,” according to a police report that was available The Independent.

Gray also told lawmakers that he “stopped using Discord because too many people were hacking his account and he was afraid someone might use his information for nefarious purposes.”

During the interview with the Grays, a deputy openly mused about the risks of the 2023 investigation, saying “God forbid” if the online threats turned into an actual shooting, according to an audio recording of the interview obtained by CNN.

Further investigation of Colt’s Discord page showed that he created the account only after he said he had deleted it, and used a Russian username that “suggests the name Lanza and refers to Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newton, Connecticut,” the report said.

According to the FBI, police notified local schools and no sufficient cause for an arrest was found at the time.

At the time of the police interview, Gray’s parents were going through a divorce. The 14-year-old stayed with his father while his mother got custody of two other children.

According to the county sheriff’s office, Colin Gray is being held at the Barrow County Detention Center.

According to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, there is no minimum age requirement to own a rifle under federal and state gun laws in the state of Georgia. However, both laws require that you be at least 18 years old to purchase a rifle.

The military-style AR rifle reportedly used in the shooting is a high-powered weapon that has been used in security threats across the country, including the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump and an estimated 10 of the 17 deadliest mass shootings since 2012.

Rhian Lubin contributed to this story.