Who is Colt Gray? 14-year-old charged in fatal Georgia school shooting

A 14-year-old boy opened fire at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia on Wednesday, killing two students and two teachers and injuring nine others.

This incident is the first mass shooting at a U.S. school since the start of the school year.

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As reported by ReutersThe suspect, who had already been questioned by police last year because of threats on the Internet about a possible school shooting, was arrested shortly after the incident, according to investigators.

Who is Colt Gray?

The shooter was identified as 14-year-old Colt Gray and will be charged and tried as an adult, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said during a news conference.

Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said the shooter, armed with an “AR platform-style weapon,” or a semi-automatic rifle, was quickly apprehended by officers assigned to the school and the suspect immediately dropped to the ground and surrendered.

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After his arrest, the suspect spoke to investigators. They assumed he acted alone, but refused to say whether they knew anything about his motive.

Officials identified those killed as two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and two teachers, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53. All nine who died in the hospital are expected to recover, Smith told reporters.

“What happened today was pure evil,” Smith said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation later announced that it was investigating online threats of a school shooting in 2023. Local police had questioned a 13-year-old and his father in nearby Jackson County about those threats. While the teen’s name was not mentioned in the FBI’s statement, Georgia authorities confirmed that he was connected to the currently detained suspect.

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“The father stated he had hunting weapons in the home, but the individual did not have unsupervised access to them. The individual denied making the threats online. Jackson County alerted local schools so the individual could continue to be monitored,” the FBI said, adding there was insufficient probable cause for an arrest. Reuters reported.

The shooting reignited the national debate about gun control and sparked a wave of grief in a country where such outbreaks occur with relative regularity.

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The White House said in a statement that President Joe Biden had been briefed on the shooting “and that his administration will continue to coordinate with federal, state and local authorities as we receive more information.”

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There have been hundreds of school and college shootings in the United States over the past two decades, with the worst occurring at Virginia Tech in 2007, where over 30 people were killed. This ongoing violence has heightened the debate over gun laws and the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to “keep and bear arms.”

(With contributions from Reuters)