US, Breakthrough in School Massacre: Shooter’s Father Arrested

THE’yet another massacre at school in the United States. Colt Gray, a 14-year-old student, Wednesday at Apalachee High School in Georgia, opened fire in the classroom, killing two studentsChristian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, and two teachersCristina Irimie, 53, and Richard Aspinwall, 39, with a rifle. Seven other people, six students and a teacher, were wounded by the gunfire. It was the 45th school shooting so far this year, and the deadliest in the United States, after the March 2023 massacre at the Covenant School in Nashville, in which six people died.

But, to answer for the school massacre, This time it’s not just Colt Gray (who is charged with four counts of manslaughter, and will be tried as an adult): as the Georgia Bureau of Investigation confirmed, His father, Colin, 54, was arrestedcharged with four counts of manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of child cruelty.

This is the second time that parents have been held accountable for a shooting: it also happened in March, after a massacre in a school in Michigan. According to investigators, Colin Gray ‘knowingly allowed’ his son to possess a gun: to the police, the man declared that he had purchased the weapon used in the massacre – a semi-automatic rifle in the AR-15 style – as Christmas present for his sonin December 2023.

Colt Gray had already been questioned by the police, last year, in May, after having threatened online with “a school shooting,” complete with photos of guns. The tip came from the FBI, and it referred to a Discord account (a social media platform popular among video game enthusiasts) created the previous month with an email address associated with Gray. Investigators interviewed Colt and his father. The boy, who was 13, said he would “never say something like that, not even as a joke.” And his father Colin had told investigators that he had hunting rifles at home: “Colt can use them if he is supervised.but does not have free access to them.” The case was dismissed because “the allegation that Colt or Colin were the users operating the Discord account that made the threat could not be proven.” At the time, “there were no grounds for arrest or further action,” the Atlanta FBI and Jackson County Sheriff’s Office said in a joint statement.

Colt Gray will remain in the custody of the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice until his 17th birthday, despite his case being transferred to the adult system: under Georgia law, if a juvenile between the ages of 13 and 17 commits a serious crime, he is automatically tried as an adult.

Colin Gray also told police that his son was being picked on at school and that he had been having problems with his parents’ separation: his mother and father were in the process of divorcing and he had been staying with his father. Colt often went hunting with his parentwho admitted to having photographed him with deer blood on his cheeks. The boy’s maternal grandfather told the New York Times that the blame for what happened is partly on the dysfunctional family of the boy. “I understand that my nephew did a horrible thing, there is no doubt about it and he will pay the price,” Charlie Polhamus said, “but he did what he did because of the environment he lived in».