A 14-year-old student was charged with four counts of felony murder in connection to a shooting at a Georgia high school on Sept. 4, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement.
So far, no motive has been established for Gray, who officials have confirmed is being charged as an adult in connection to the shooting. Few details about the suspect have been offered. Members of his family have not issued any public statements after the incident, and no mug shot has been released.
A student who went to open the door “saw that he had a gun, so she backed away,” Lyela Sayarath told the media outlet.
“[Gray] turned to the classroom that would have been to my right, and he just starts to shoot, and you hear about 10 to 15 rounds back-to-back,” Sayarath said.
“At that time, there was no probable cause for arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action on the local, state, or federal levels,” the FBI said on Sept. 4.
Jackson County officials could not substantiate the threats and did not charge the teenager, although they did alert local schools for “continued monitoring of the subject,” Mangum said in a social media post.
Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, told reporters in a briefing later on Sept. 4 that the local Department of Family and Children Services also had previously been in contact with the family of the alleged shooter. Investigators are probing this previous connection for any information that may relate to the shooting.
There is no evidence of another suspect and no evidence that the alleged shooter wanted to attack other schools, authorities said.
“There is no evidence of a list of schools being targeted,” Hosey said. “However, there is a lot of evidence that is being recovered and evaluated. We’re going through everything to determine if there’s any active threats.”
Hosey noted that there was another boy who went to the school with a similar name and was not involved.
In a separate Sept. 4 press conference, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said Gray was taken into custody by a school resource officer.
“Within minutes, law enforcement was on the scene, as well as two school resource officers assigned to the school who immediately encountered the subject,” the sheriff said during the press conference.