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Although law enforcement said there were no prior warnings of a possible threat, a video has now emerged that shows police interviewing the suspected Georgia school shooter, Colt Gray, prior to his rampage.

The teenager used an assault-style rifle to kill four people – two teachers and two students – before surrendering to police. Seven others were wounded and two more suffered other injuries during the terror-filled September morning at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia.

Gray’s mother, Marcee Gray, believes the death toll could have been higher had it not been for a text from her son saying “I’m sorry, mom”, which led her to contact the school councillor immediately and request they find her son.

“I told them it was an extreme emergency and for them to go immediately and find Colt to check on him. If it weren’t for me, they would never have even known to expect anything.”

Intervention by the school was not enough to stop the tragedy, but a video of the boy being interviewed by police prior to the shooting has now surfaced, and many are asking if enough was done to prevent the loss of four lives.

The FBI alerted the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office in 2023 to a threat made on the Discord messaging app to “shoot up a middle school tomorrow.” Colt Grey and his father, Colin Grey, are shown on camera being questioned by police over the tip. It’s eerie to watch knowing what was to come.

 

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According to his classmates, Colt Grey left his Algebra 1 class at around 9:45 a.m. during the second period on the morning of the shooting. A buddy of Gray’s who has the same name as him was then dragged from the classroom shortly after he departed, along with his backpack. Students, however, observed Grey pull out a gun when he returned to the classroom entrance.

“The shooter – he looked up,” another student explained. “He was looking at me, my teacher, and then​ somebody was in the hall. He turned his head and he just started shooting.”

One of the teachers, David Phenix, opened the classroom door to see what was happening – and then was shot.

“The whole class ran to the back of the classroom and that’s when we realized that my teacher got shot, and then my other teacher tried to stop the bleeding,” a student told CNN. “She was grabbing rags to stop the bleeding.”

Phenix managed to shut the door before falling to the ground.

“And then we heard more banging and we thought (the shooter) was going to come back, so we turned off all the lights and got quiet.” They sat in the dark and waited for law enforcement to arrive. When a school resource officer confronted Colt Gray, he immediately surrendered to the officer and was taken into custody, officials said. When apprehended, Gray simply said, “I did it”.

Colin Gray, the boy’s father, has now been charged by police over the shooting. Gray told law enforcement he bought the AR-type weapon for his son “as a holiday present.” The father of the 14-year-old now also faces two counts of second-degree murder under charges that “push the legal limits of parental responsibility for a child’s alleged gun crime”.

Prosecutors believe the case against Gray is “all going to boil down to what was the knowledge that this dad had about his son.”

In light of the police conversation with his kid on camera, Grey ought to have recognised the danger and maybe put automatic guns out of his son’s reach.

[source:cnn]