Georgia School Shooter Colt Gray’s Father Charged With Four Counts Of Manslaughter, Gave The Rifle To Son As Christmas Gift

The father of Colt Gray, the 14-year-old who opened fire at a High School in Georgia earlier this week which resulted in four deaths, has been arrested for murder.

On Wednesday, Gray killed two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, and left nine others wounded. 

His father, Colin Gray, 54, has been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said at a conference on Thursday night that the charges against Colin relate to him “knowingly allowing his son to possess a weapon.”

In the investigation, officials found that the AR-style rifle used in the shooting was a gift from Colin to his son in December 2023. In May of 2023, both Gray and his father were interviewed by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office after the FBI had been alerted to posts Gray allegedly made on the popular gaming platform Discord that threatened a school shooting. At the time, Gray claimed that he had been hacked and would never make threats to shoot up a school; the investigator wrote that no arrests were made at the time due to ‘inconsistent information.’

In a court hearing on Friday morning, Judge Currie Mingledorff II said that if Colin is convicted on all counts, he faces up to 180 years in prison.

In 2005, the US Supreme Court ruled that no one under the age of 18 can be sentenced to death, so Gray’s maximum penalty is life in prison with or without parole. A hearing for Gray has been set for December 4.

Barrow County Sheriff Judy Smith said on Thursday that all nine other victims who were wounded and hospitalized would make a full recovery. Hospital officials reported that seven of the nine patients were dismissed from the hospital on Thursday, and the others remain in stable condition on the mend.

This mass shooting, barely weeks into the new school year, is the deadliest U.S. school shooting since the Covenant School shooting in Nashville that left six people dead in March 2023.