What we know about Colt Gray, the 14-year-old Georgia school shooting suspect
Police named the teenage suspect after four people were killed at a Georgia high school last Wednesday. It has since been revealed he was known to the FBI before the tragedy occurred.
A 14-year-old boy has been charged with four counts of murder after allegedly shooting dead two students and two teachers at a high school in the US.
A gunman opened fire at Apalachee High School in Georgia on Wednesday morning, leading dozens of police officers to swarm the campus as students and teachers rushed to an American football field for shelter.
Police have named the suspect, despite him being a minor, as Colt Gray.
On Thursday, police released a picture of Gray and said the teenager surrendered when “engaged by school resource officers inside the school”.
His father, Colin Gray, has also been arrested and charged with two counts of second-degree murder.
In addition, he is accused of four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children.
Here’s what we know about Colt Gray so far.
Gray is a student at Apalachee High School and was arrested at the scene of the shooting, according to Georgia Bureau of Investigation director Chris Hosey.
He said law enforcement officers and two school resource officers responded to reports of an active shooter within minutes.
One of the school officers confronted Gray and he surrendered immediately, Barrow County sheriff Jud Smith said, adding: “The shooter quickly realised that if he did not give up, it would end with an OIS [officer-involved shooting].”
The teen has since been charged with four counts of felony murder in connection with the shooting, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said.
Sheriff Smith said a motive was unclear and that he did not know whether the victims were targeted or whether there was a connection between the gunman and the victims.
“I don’t know why it happened and we may never know,” he said.
The attack was carried out using an AR-style weapon – a lightweight semi-automatic rifle often associated with school shootings.
On Friday a judge ruled that the teenager would not face the death penalty because, as a juvenile, the maximum sentence he can receive is life without parole.
Suspect’s mother ‘called the school 30 minutes before attack’
Gray’s aunt has claimed his mother called one of the high school’s counsellors warning of an “extreme emergency” 30 minutes before he allegedly opened fire there.
Annie Brown, the teenager’s aunt, told the Washington Post the boy’s mother also said they needed to find Gray “immediately”.
Phone records shared with the newspaper, and later confirmed by the Associated Press, show a 10-minute call was made from the family’s shared phone plan to the school at that time.
Gray had been investigated before
Gray was investigated by police over threats to carry out a similar attack last year, the FBI said in a statement on Wednesday.
They said they received several anonymous tips about Gray telling people on the gaming platform Discord that he might carry out a shooting.
The FBI interviewed Gray, then 13, who denied making the threats, and his father, who stated he had hunting guns locked in a safe in the family home but that his son did not have unsupervised access to them.
He said the teenager had struggled with his parents’ separation and often got picked on at school.
“He knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do, and how to use them and not use them,” the boy’s father said, according to a transcript of the interview.
He also mentioned his son becoming “flustered under pressure” and “not really thinking straight”.
“I don’t want him to fight anybody, but they just keep like pinching him and touching him,” he told investigators in May 2023.
Ultimately the case was closed after neither Colt nor Colin Gray were successfully linked to the Discord account the threats were made from.
There were no grounds to confiscate the family’s guns either, according to police reports released by the sheriff’s office.
Authorities are now re-investigating the incident and any possible connection it may have to the most recent shooting.
After speaking about the FBI statement, Mr Hosey said: “We are also aware of some previous contacts that the Department of Family and Children Services had had with the suspect and his family, and we are pursuing that avenue as well.”
Law enforcement sources have told NBC News Colin Gray bought his son an AR-style rifle as a gift after the pair were questioned.
What we know about the victims
The four victims who died have been named as students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and teachers Richard Aspenwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53.
Christian was described as “a very good kid and very sweet and so caring” by his older sister, Lisette Angulo.
“He was so loved by many. His loss was so sudden and unexpected. We are truly heartbroken. He really didn’t deserve this,” she added.
Mr Aspenwall and Ms Irimie both taught maths, according to the school’s website, with the former also listed as a defensive coordinator for the football team.
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Nine other people, eight students and one teacher, were injured in the attack. Authorities said they were all expected to make a recovery.
‘I didn’t want to die that way’
Witnesses have been talking about the traumatic incident while the investigation continues.
Student Camille Nelms said she was shedding tears when a gunman opened fire on her classroom.
As bullets came flying into her classroom, the teacher and students tried to take shelter in the corner.
“I was crying, I didn’t want to die that way,” Nelms told NBC affiliate WXIA of Atlanta. “I don’t want to meet the Lord that way.”
Student Jacob King said he had dozed off in his world history class after morning football practice when he heard around 10 gunshots.
He said he did not believe the shooting was real until he heard an officer yelling at someone to put down their gun. He said that when his class was led out, he saw officers shielding what appeared to be an injured student.
Ashley Enoh said she was at home on Wednesday morning when she got a text from her brother, who is a senior at the school.
The message said: “Just so you know, I love you.”
When she asked in the family group chat what was going on, he said there was a gunman at the school.
Shirley Power spoke to Sky News’ US partner NBC News about learning of the shooting at her grandchild’s school from her daughter.
“My daughter called me at work screaming that there was a shooter at Apalachee and begged me to get there as quick as possible,” Ms Powers said.
She said the principal instructed her grandson to run to the band room.
“Start praying, for all the kids, not just my grandson,” she added.
Authorities were alerted to the attack due to a new alarm system that had only been implemented a week earlier.
Sheriff Jud Smith said: “All of our teachers are armed with a form of ID, this alarms us and alerts law enforcement officers after buttons are pressed on the ID.
“It alerts us there is an active situation at the school. We’ve had that about a week now.”
Police said that the actions of teachers saved a number of lives.
On Wednesday night, local council member Power Evans spoke to hundreds of community members at a vigil in a local park.
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“Whether you have a student, whether you’re the mother or father of a student, brother or sister, whether you’re a teacher, an Apalachee teacher, this all affects us,” he said.
“We may be a county of 90,000 people, but we’re still a small community, and when one of us hurts, we all hurt.”
Apalachee High School, which had almost 1,900 students last year, began term on 1 August.
Authorities said they were still chasing down a number of leads and carrying out investigations.
