The 14-year-old alleged suspect in last week’s shooting at a Georgia high school kept his gun in his backpack and hid in the bathroom before the attack, state law enforcement officials said on Thursday.
According to the GBI, Gray, on the morning of the attack, had asked a teacher for permission to go to the front office to speak to an unidentified person. He was then allowed to leave and take his belongings with him before he went into the restroom and hid from his teachers.
The GBI said the suspect later “took out the rifle and began shooting.”
Thursday’s details helped to fill in some blanks about how the teenager got the rifle into the school in Winder, located near Atlanta, before fatally shooting four people and injuring nine others.
“Gray hid [the rifle] in his backpack,” and the rifle “could not be broken down,” the GBI said. Previously, authorities said Gray used an AR platform-style rifle in the shooting.
Both the teen and his father, Colin Gray, made court appearances last week in charges related to the shooting. The younger Gray faces four felony murder charges, while his father faces charges of involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder related to the shooting, in addition to providing his son with a firearm in the “knowledge that he was a threat to himself and others.”
The GBI said it can confirm the gun used in the shooting was the “same gun” given by the suspect’s father.
“This is the first time in Georgia history that the parent of a school shooting suspect has been charged in connection with the crime,” the GBI statement said, noting it’s the second time in U.S. history that a parent was charged in connection to a school shooting. In Michigan, the parents of convicted school shooter Ethan Crumbley were convicted and sentenced in connection to a 2021 incident that killed four students.
Authorities have not offered any motive for the Georgia shooting.
Colt Gray was charged as an adult in the fatal shooting of Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53. Aspinwall and Irimie were both math teachers, and Aspinwall also helped coach the school’s football team.
District Attorney Brad Smith said at a news conference earlier this month that additional charges will be filed against Colt Gray.
“You don’t have to have been physically injured in this to be a victim,” Smith said outside the Barrow County courthouse on Sept. 6. “Everyone in this community is a victim. Every child in that school was a victim.”
Earlier this week, Colt Gray’s aunt confirmed that the teen’s mother called the school before the shooting incident, warning staff of an “extreme emergency” involving her son.
Annie Brown told the Washington Post that her sister, Marcee Gray, texted her saying she spoke with a school counselor and urged them to “immediately” find her son to check on him. Brown confirmed the reporting on Saturday in text messages but declined to provide further comment.
Relatives had sought to get the school to provide Colt Gray with psychiatric assistance, she said.
“I wanted Colt to be admitted to an inpatient treatment,” Marcee Gray told the outlet. “Colt was on board with it.”
