Colt Gray, the 14-year-old gunman accused of killing four people at his Georgia high school, appeared in court for the first time on Friday to face murder charges, less than 24 hours after his father’s arrest in connection with the bloody massacre.
Gray, armed with AR-style rifle, opened fired Wednesday morning inside classrooms at Apalachee High School in the suburb of Winder, some 50 miles outside Atlanta. Local authorities were alerted to the violence through new technology on the teacher’s identification badges: a small button that, when pushed, notifies law enforcement to a potential active situation.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said first responders were on the scene within minutes of receiving the alert, but that it was a school resource officer who initially confronted Gray. The teen immediately surrendered, the sheriff added, and he was taken into custody without further incident.
Two math teachers, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53 were killed during the rampage earlier this week, as were Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, who were both 14-year-old students at Apalachee, officials confirmed.
An additional nine people, among them another teacher, were injured, police said.
In the aftermath of the shooting, the gunman’s father, 54-year-old Colin Gray, was also arrested, with authorities arguing that he facilitated the shooting by allowing his son to possess a deadly weapon. He was booked into the Barrow County Jail on Thursday and faces 14 charges, including four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children.
Law enforcement sources told NBC the elder Gray gave the AR-style rifle to his son as a Christmas gift, despite the fact that they were interviewed by law enforcement officials in May 2023 in connection with reported online threats to carry out a school shooting.