A 14-year-old student has been arrested and is being charged with four counts of murder after carrying out a mass shooting at his high school in Georgia.
The student, Colt Gray, is going to be tried as an adult, authorities said on Thursday. The shooting took place at Apalachee High School, not far outside Atlanta, leaving two teachers and two students dead and injuring at least nine others.
The mass shooting marks the 45th such shooting at a school in 2024 so far, and is now the deadliest since the March 2023 shooting in Nashville at The Covenant School that left six people dead.
The investigation is still ongoing, with more information and details coming out throughout the days.
On Thursday, authorities said that Gray carried out the shooting with an AR-style rifle.
The father of the shooter, Colin Gray, told investigators this week that he purchased the gun that his son used in Wednesday’s shooting as a present during the holidays in December of 2023.
That contradicts with the information the father told investigators during an interview in May of 2023. Colt and his father were brought in for questioning after the student was accused of making threats of carrying out a shooting at the school.
At the time of that original interview, the father said they only had hunting rifles in the house, adding:
“Colt is allowed to use them when supervised but does not have unfettered access to them.”
That investigation was closed by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office because they couldn’t substantiate the tip they had received about the shooting threat.
A little more than a year later, Colt Gray carried out the threats he allegedly made in May 2023, killing four people in the process.
Classmates spoke to media outlets this week to describe what happened.
Lyela Sayarath explained that Colt left his Algebra 1 classroom around 9:45 a.m. Toward the end of the class, he knocked on the door to come back in, since the doors lock automatically.
Another student went to the door to open it, but saw that Colt had a gun and refused to open the door, according to Lyela. That decision may have saved the lives of the other students and teachers who were inside.
The shooter then turned to another classroom nearby and started to shoot.
First reports of an active shooter situation came into law enforcement around 10:20 a.m.
Chris Hosey, the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, said that law enforcement officers and two school resource officers responded quickly.
One of those SROs confronted the shooter, who then surrendered. Colt Gray was then taken into custody.
So far, Colt has cooperated with investigators. He’s being held at the Gainesville Regional Youth Detention Centers, according to the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice.
He’s scheduled to make his first appearance in court on Friday, according to Glenn Allen, a spokesperson for the department.
