GA - Apalachee High School shooting, 4 dead, 9 injured, Winder, Barrow County - 04 September 2024 *father and son arrested*

[SouthEnd]

I see a lot about how the home situation and the school bullying of CG created the perfect storm. I don't disagree. However the struggles he was experiencing would not have materialised into a mass-shooting if he didn't have the means. I grew up in a rural town that was hotbed for DV; I didn't understand much but I had classmates who would show up for school with black eyes and broken arms, only to experience intense bullying there. They were unruly and violent and got into fights, they had grandfathers who hunted, but culturally, no one would let a child anywhere near a gun, much less buy them one as a present.

IMO there will always be a myriad of reasons that will get teenagers (as in, the creatures that are a raging ball of hormones and bad judgement, often needing attention and not realising what consequences mean) wanting to act out in the most violent ways imaginable. It is society's responsibility to make sure they don't have the opportunity to do it.

My heart breaks for everyone, of course mostly the victims but personally? I think that if CG had no access to that weapon, he'd have grown out of that stupid phase. Of course his life wouldn't magically become rosy but he'd have half a chance to have a life, at 18, at 25, when his brain had matured, IMO. Now his life is over. A tragedy that keeps repeating, weekly. I have no more words, sorry for the rant.

 

[kaen]

After reading a bit about his mother and he and his dad being evicted from their home in early 2023 I can see some bullying over that.

But...there's a familiar ring about his childhood,worse but familiar about what neighbors said about Jennifer Crumbley and EC when he was young,'
There's 2 other children in the family who were said to have gone with the mother when parents divorced.
Being bullied can start at a young age and
I'm not making excuses for him in any way but his childhood could have killed the good within and let the dark run amok?

At his morning hearing I was focused on his extreme calmness, he just sat there like he was watching the judge address someone else and answered clearly when the judge asked him if he understood what he was telling him.

I don't know if there's footage of him entering and exiting the courtroom that shows him expressing something?
Now his father.....


In one of the articles about the 2023 threats it was either the FBI or local LE that said he remained calm when being questioned,

At some point we may learn of his diagnosis. I have worked with adolescents who committed terrible acts and afterward are incredibly calm. With my clients, it appears that they wanted the emotional release and equally wanted the regimented structure that being in police custody gave them-- protection from themselves and others.

I wonder if we will ever hear why he started school late and if there had been any arguments/discussions about going to school at all. His family had stated that they were interfacing with people over the course of the last weeks. What was happening with this young man at home? And, why was no help given?

 

[statt#1]

they'll just start shooting up busses or kids at recess

Yep, I earlier stated that indeed, they are already killing daily on the streets, just read the news. If you want to stop shooting in schools right now, you must prevent firearms from entering the school.

 

[LadyL]

REVEALED: Georgia school shooter Colt Gray was 'bullied for being gay'

Georgia school shooter Colt Gray was bullied by classmates who called him gay, his father told detectives in an interview last year.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Georgia school shooter Colt Gray was bullied by classmates who called him gay, his father told detectives in an interview last year.

Colin Grey, 54, made the claims when he was interviewed by the Jackson County Sheriff's office after the FBI received a tip that his son had threatened a shooting at his middle school.

'It was very difficult for him to go to school and not get picked on,' Colin Gray told an investigator, according to a transcript of the conversation obtained by DailyMail.com.

The father added: 'It went from one thing to another... I was trying to get him on the golf team... [they were like] Oh, look, Colt's gay. He's dating that guy. Just ridiculed him day after day after day.'

of course he was bullied
aren't they all?
he's ticking all the boxes
why can't people see this potential in their own kids?

 

[LadyL]

it's obvious from this quote that he meant he would get rid of the guns - he 'assured officers' JMO

Colin reportedly assured officers that he would be 'mad as hell' if he learned the allegations about his son making threats were true, and that 'all the guns [would] go away.'

REVEALED: Georgia school shooter Colt Gray was 'bullied for being gay'

Georgia school shooter Colt Gray was bullied by classmates who called him gay, his father told detectives in an interview last year.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[LadyL]

Yep, new school.

So whatever culture of bullying existed at his last school, this was a whole new place with potentially a different culture and way of dealing with that kind of behaviour in its student body.

It's hard to play the 'years of bullying' card when there's a good chance that every person he shot didn't even know his name yet.

MOO

except that the bullying leads to the urge to strike out at anyone, not just the people who bullied you
it helped form him as a violent person IMO
of course it's just one of the factors

 

[LadyL]

Fyi on discussion surrounding the death penalty

In 1972 the death penalty was deemed unconstitutional

In 76 the Supreme Court reversed that.

In 1987 Georgia tried sentencing a 15 yo to death. The Supreme court stepped in and decided that minors under 16 were ineligible for the death penalty.

In 2005 the Supreme Court extended that ruling to cover anyone under the age of 18 at the time of their crime

I think the confusion, at least mine, was that he was being charged as an adult so does that make him eligible?
apparently the judge was just as confused as the rest of us

 

[statt#1]

In the cases of this young man and the Michigan shooter and the Uvalde shooter, there are not interventions that ever happened because they were not in treatment.

Yep, I clearly stated that one has to be willing to access care, using the analogy of baking a cake

The building that this young man shot up was filled with new security tech--- auto locking doors, teacher cards that go directly to LE for alerts, but maybe not metal detectors but lots of great deterrents. The people who died were in unsecured areas. The killer tried to gain access to rooms by banging on doors and barking orders.

This may be true, but the weapon was still permitted entry to the building. And sure, a killer could shoot through windows, on busses, in playgrounds. Heck, any scenario is possible, he or she could access explosives and blow a hole in the wall to gain entry, or drive a Humvee through the front door. However, an immediate remedy that would be infinitely successful would be to prevent the weapon from entry to the building

I struggle with the idea that this young man had access to a weapon given what his own family stated his mental health concerns were.

I too think this is another serious error, his having access to the weapon...however, remember, the FBI was at his doorstep. Who failed in that? The idea that nobody knew what was goin on with this kid is naive in my opinion.

Your post and reply to mine were awesome, thanks!!!

 

[DS2021]

I think the confusion, at least mine, was that he was being charged as an adult so does that make him eligible?
apparently the judge was just as confused as the rest of us

im pretty sure that hes not eligible either way

 

[LadyL]

That’s what I was wondering about. Why would, whoever reported it, even say that!

because the judge said it in the courtroom
he then called everyone back in to correct himself

 

[Puzzles8]

All public schools should be equipped with metal detectors, school resource officers, and all modern technology to prevent more lost lives... because there is no responsibility elsewhere in the child's life.

jmo

It's interesting, Chicago's Public School Board voted to remove school resource officers last February 2024.

https://news.wttw.com/2024/02/22/cps-board-approves-plan-remove-resource-officers-schools

JMO

 

[kaen]

This may be true, but the weapon was still permitted entry to the building. And sure, a killer could shoot through windows, on busses, in playgrounds. Heck, any scenario is possible, he or she could access explosives and blow a hole in the wall to gain entry, or drive a Humvee through the front door. However, an immediate remedy that would be infinitely successful would be to prevent the weapon from entry to the building

I too think this is another serious error, his having access to the weapon...however, remember, the FBI was at his doorstep. Who failed in that? The idea that nobody knew what was goin on with this kid is naive in my opinion.

Your post and reply to mine were awesome, thanks!!!

I am not in conflict with your reply. I will say that the gun should have never been in his hands. The gun should have never been able to leave his home in his hands. We can try and make schools armed fortresses but shooters are cunning and always planning based on the information on previous shootings. If parents/guardians refuse to secure their weapons, maybe they should not have them. Additionally, if parents/guardians are unwilling to work to keep their kids healthy physically and psychologically, maybe they should not maintain custody of them. Seems to me that responsibility of primary caregivers is taking a back seat to the kind of fortress building we need to have to keep children safe from unsecured guns and families who do not properly care for their children who become violent killers. I work in a school that is a fortress but I, for sure, know that every fortress has an exploitable weak spot. Kids should be cared for and guns should have to be secured. JMHO.

 

[LadyL]

Yes, they said he was a new student and that it was his first full day. He left earlier the day before. Is it possible that he started school with some half days before this? The girl who said it made it sound like he had been there longer. He had been enrolled two weeks before this happened.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/05/us/timeline-georgia-high-school-shooting/index.html

For Lyela Sayarath at Apalachee High, it was Algebra 1.

When the quiet boy sitting next to her got up during the lesson and left, the door closing and automatically locking behind him, Lyela thought nothing of it, she said.

This boy was known to skip class.

But then he came back.

The 14-year-old knocked on the classroom door, and a girl got up to let him back in before jumping back, startled.

The boy had an assault rifle.

Through the small window of the locked classroom door, Lyela saw the boy with the gun turn right toward another classroom, she later recalled.

unless maybe she attended a previous school with him?

 

[fred&edna]

It's interesting, Chicago's Public School Board voted to remove school resource officers last February 2024.

https://news.wttw.com/2024/02/22/cps-board-approves-plan-remove-resource-officers-schools

JMO

I'm curious about this whole school safety plan they are using instead... Maybe it might include the technology alert buttons I linked in a previous post??

A student quoted in that article stated, “Police do not prevent harm, they show up once harm has already been done (and) they do not have a sense of restorative justice,” said Jose Navarro, a senior at Curie High School. “Police are not keeping you safe, communities keep you safe.”

ETA: I just read the following news report stating one school in Chicago as been using the tech alert badges for a couple of years.

Some Chicago area school districts use same emergency tech that may have saved lives in Georgia

The technology is built into the badges all school staff members carry with them every day.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[Chimera]

of course he was bullied
aren't they all?
he's ticking all the boxes
why can't people see this potential in their own kids?

Bbm.
Agreed.

What's standing out here imo -- is that Colin's admitting he knew his son was troubled and still saw fit to arm him.
IMO --Colin has blood on his hands to some degree.
Omo.

 

[Izzylizzy]

Bbm.
Agreed.

What's standing out here imo -- is that Colin's admitting he knew his son was troubled and still saw fit to arm him.
IMO --Colin has blood on his hands to some degree.
Omo.

I don't know if this has already been posted.

'Charges against teen Georgia school shooting suspect’s father push the boundaries of who’s responsible for a mass gun attack'​

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/06/us/colin-gray-georgia-shooting-suspect-father-charges/index.html

 

[kaen]

I don't know if this has already been posted.

'Charges against teen Georgia school shooting suspect’s father push the boundaries of who’s responsible for a mass gun attack'​

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/06/us/colin-gray-georgia-shooting-suspect-father-charges/index.html

Seems to me that we have also seen in MSM some family statements that the killer was asking for help AND that the family at a distance was seeking help. This would also go to the father having knowledge of his son's mental state. If people in FL think a person is at risk, how could the man living in the same house not know

 

[imstilla.grandma]

“Blaming the father — and the decision to immediately charge him — doesn’t get at the root problem of gun violence, which is that firearms are widely accessible to adults and children,” said Linda C. Fentiman, a professor emerita at Pace University.

The prosecutions raise thorny questions about culpability.
“These cases are horrible, and I very much understand why a prosecutor would feel like parents like this were egregious in their lack of care,” Professor Yankah said. “But I do think it’s worth pausing to realize that we have blown right by a deeply held principle: that you’re only responsible for your actions, and that when other people act, you’re not responsible for what they do.”

Georgia Tests a Novel Tactic in School Shootings: Putting Parents on Trial

After four people were killed at Apalachee High School, prosecutors charged a student and his father, who officials say had given the boy the gun as a gift.

www.nytimes.com

 

[HMSHood]

Colt Gray reminds me of Evan Ramsey, Jeff Weise, Mitchell Johnson, Asa Coon, and Patrick Purdy. They came from broken families.

https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/rampage_school_shooters_typology_1.2.pdf

https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/expanding_the_sample_1.5.pdf

https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/four_domains_1.0.pdf

Patrick Purdy | School Shooters .info

Information about the school shooter who perpetrated the Cleveland Elementary School [Purdy] shooting. Age: 24. Psychological type: Traumatized. Attack type: Targeted Group. Population: Aberrant Adult.

schoolshooters.info

 

[DS2021]

But I do think it’s worth pausing to realize that we have blown right by a deeply held principle: that you’re only responsible for your actions, and that when other people act, you’re not responsible for what they do

So if he wouldve gone and vandalized the school, and done thousands in damage, his father wouldn't have been responsible?

We hold parents accountable for their minor childrens actions all the time.