OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
5:17 PM – Friday, September 6, 2024
Colt Gray, the 14-year-old Georgia high school shooter, was branded “gay” by classmates and other boys, his father informed detectives during an interview last year.
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Following an FBI tip that his son had threatened a shooting at his middle school, Colin Gray, 54, made these statements last year during an interview with the Jackson County Sheriff’s office.
“It was very difficult for him to go to school and not get picked on,” 54-year-old Colin Gray told an investigator, according to a transcript of the conversation obtained by the press.
“It went from one thing to another… I was trying to get him on the golf team… [the other students were like] “Oh, look… Colt’s gay. He’s dating that guy,” the father continued.
“Just ridiculed him day after day after day.”
In connection with the deaths of Richard Aspinwall, 39, Cristina Irimie, 53, and Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14 years old, Gray, also 14, is being charged as an adult. Additionally, the shooting on Wednesday at Winder, Georgia’s Apalachee High School, injured nine others. The names of the injured have not been released.
The courtroom was filled with roughly fifty spectators when he and his father appeared in consecutive hearings on Friday morning. In relation to the incident, the older Gray is also accused of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.
According to investigators, Colin Gray informed police this week that he bought the firearm used in the shootings for his son as a Christmas present last December.
Following a tip from the FBI that Gray, who was 13-years-old at the time, “had possibly threatened to shoot up a middle school tomorrow,” the sheriff conducted an interview with the teenager. The sheriff’s office incident report states that the threat was made on the social platform Discord, which is popular with young people who play video gamers.
“I’m committing a mass shooting and im waiting a good 2-3 years… I cant kill myself yet, cause I’m not contributing anything to culture I need to go out knowing I did,” the child posted. He even added, “I’m ready,” while attaching a photograph of two guns.
CNN reported that the 14-year-old had also consistently discussed both the Sandy Hook massacre and transgenderism.
Additionally, Charles Polhamus, the grandfather of Colt, described his grandson to CNN as “just a good kid, but he lived in an environment that was hostile.”
“His dad beat up on him, I mean, I’m not talking about physical, but screaming and hollering, and he did the same thing to my daughter,” Polhamus claimed.
In a May 2023 police interview, Colin, the father, revealed that he and his son’s mother had recently split up, claiming that “she took his younger two kids, leaving him to care for Colt, who he said was struggling at Jefferson Middle School.”
Colin continued, saying that in an effort to “get him away from those video games,” he was attempting to teach his son about firearms and pique his interest in hunting and the great outdoors.
The father then proceeded to give the officer a photo of Colt with a bloody face, describing it as the “best day ever” after the child had shot his first deer while hunting.
“He knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do, and how to use them and not use them,” Colin Gray stated, according to the transcripts obtained from the sheriff’s office.
According to reports, Colin also told authorities that “all the guns [would] go away” and that he would be “mad as hell” if he found out that his son had made threats or planned anything out of the ordinary.
The teenager showed up in person in court on Friday while wearing shackles, grey sweatpants, and a green t-shirt. He only responded softly to Judge Currie Mingledorff, keeping his head down and hiding his face with his hair. When asked to confirm his name, he answered “yes, sir.”
Meanwhile, the 54-year-old father sobbed as he entered the same courtroom moments after his son and was accused of four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder, and eight counts of child abuse.
“I wanted to make it clear to you that the penalty does not include death. It includes life without the possibility of parole or with the possibility of parole,” Judge Mingledorff said.
A 2005 ruling by the Supreme Court prohibits the execution of criminals who committed their crimes while under the age of 18.
When investigators interrogated the adolescent last year regarding the threatening posts on Discord, he denied threatening to carry out a school shooting, according to the sheriff’s report.
“We did not drop the ball at all on this,” Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum told The Associated Press. “We did all we could do with what we had at the time.”
According to reports, the boy was obsessed with other notorious school shooters, like Nikolas Cruz, the killer from Parkland, Florida.
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