On September 5, 2024, police say a suspected shooter, 14-year-old Colt Gray, opened fire at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. Upon arrival, officers confronted the teen, who surrendered and was soon taken into custody. They added that he will be charged with murder and prosecuted as an adult. Two students and two teachers were killed in the shooting.
The victims were identified as 14-year-old Mason Schermerhorn, 14-year-old Christian Angulo, 39-year-old Richard Aspinwall, and 53-year-old Christina Irimie.
The shooter used an AR-platform style weapon, according Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey, who said authorities are investigating how the gun was obtained. Last year, local law enforcement spoke with Gray and his father about online threats to commit a school shooting made on Discord. There was no probable cause for arrest at the time.
Gray was previously on the radar of law enforcement after he was tied to several online threats reported anonymously to the FBI last year, the federal agency said Wednesday.
In May 2023, the FBI forwarded a tip to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office that a Discord user had threatened to “shoot up a school.” The threats also contained images of guns, the FBI said in a statement.
In addition to the threats, investigators noted in reports that the Discord user’s profile name was written in Russian and translated to Lanza, which the investigator said was a reference to Adam Lanza, the man who killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.
In an interview with investigators, Gray said he had deleted his Discord account and denied making the threats.
“Colt expressed concern that someone is accusing him of threatening to shoot up a school, stating that he would never say such a thing, even in a joking manner,” the report said.
Deputies also interviewed Gray’s father, who said that he had “hunting rifles” in the house but that his son did not have “unfettered access to them.”
Law enforcement officials on Wednesday declined to say whether they had determined what motivated the shooting and emphasized that the investigation is still in its early stages.
“This is a very, very fluid investigation,” Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said in a news conference outside the school. “What you see behind us is an evil thing.”
Smith, however, told reporters he was not aware of any connection between the suspected shooter and the victims.
Along with the online threats posted last year, officials said they are looking into whether the teen had any associates who were involved in the shooting as well as any interactions involving Gray, his family and child services.
Hosey said there’s no evidence to suggest there was any additional shooter involved in the incident, adding that authorities will pursue any leads about potential associates of the gunman.
“We’re following up any potential leads through the investigation to ensure – if there are any associates involved – that we find them, we identify them,” he said.
Hosey on Wednesday also said that investigators are aware of “previous contacts” that the state’s department of children and family services had with “the suspect and his family.”
“We are pursuing that avenue as well to see if that has any connection with today’s incident,” he said.
Gray was brought to the Regional Youth Detention Center in Gainesville overnight, Glenn Allen, a spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice. Gray will appear in front of a judge virtually at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, Allen said.
Schools across Barrow County have canceled classes for the rest of the week as investigators work to determine whether there are any active threats to schools in the area and across the state of Georgia.
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