GA - Winder - Apalachee High School school shooting, 4 dead, 9 injured *father and son arrested*

[Inthedetails]

Just like with Crumbly in MI, a teacher had done the right thing and notified the administration. In this scenario, it would make sense that this student should have been brought to the office immediately and his belongings searched. The administration through the school counselors knew that he was having mental health problems and was now speaking of shootings. A call to the parent should have occurred after the child was brought to office to discuss the conversation.

This kid made statements to a teacher. Texted he was sorry to his mother. The mother was right to call with the idea of getting to him immediately. Why did the school allow for that 1/2 plus time lag where there were no eyes on him?

I wonder if admin first looked for the student with the similar name.

jmo

 

[shotgun09]

Who exactly was the mother talking with that morning on the phone? A receptionist? A VP ? A Counselor? His Teacher? Has that information been released?

 

[Bounceycat]

this whole time I was under the impression FBI questioned him but was it just local LE?

Correct, the FBI handed it off to local LE to follow up and question.

 

[RANCH]

Who exactly was the mother talking with that morning on the phone? A receptionist? A VP ? A Counselor? His Teacher? Has that information been released?

School counselor.

And a teacher also contacted a counselor about the shooter the same morning. By email. Not a very good way to make sure the shooter was stopped.

She recounted her conversation with a school counselor in an interview with ABC News. “The counselor said, ‘Well, I wanted to let you know that earlier this morning one of Colt’s teachers had sent me an email that said Colt had been making references to school shootings,’” Marcee Gray said.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/10/us/georgia-school-shooting-questions/index.html

 

[LadyL]

I have a feeling it was colt on discord the year prior.

I agree.

 

[MoominMama222]

I have a hard time believing that the FBI couldn't trace these messages. I mean every terrorist in the world uses a VPN--and I assume even more advanced tools to evade detection. Is a VPN really that foolproof against the FBI? And they did trace it--they traced it to him, partly. Do they really lack any other tools to get an answer? Or was this a matter of not having the will and dismissing the potential seriousness of it?

I'm a high school teacher and I just attempted to share concerns at my school about a student and the SRO didn't know the kid, didn't write down his name, and seemed a bit eye-rolly about it. That is still the pervasive attitude of most people I encounter--it could never happen here. We have no metal detectors and are sitting ducks basically.

 

[Cryptic]

I wonder why the school counselor was communicating about the concerns of violence by email with the mother that morning and not the father - I thought the father had custody. Did the school have both parents listed as the custodial parents in their files? Colt lived with his father, so assuming he had custody. If both parents were listed as custodial parents, then the school should have contacted both parents.

My guess is that different schools can be less "By the book" when dealing with students in bad situations.

In past years, my family and I gave support to at risk type youth. When one wayward mom and her two children suddenly went missing and "phone dark" after having a break up with a bad boyfriend, I feared the worst and went down to the school.

I am not a legal foster parent, and was not a relative. But.... when I gave the guidance counselor enough family details to clearly demonstrate that my family was providing alot of support to the children, she asked for my ID.

After doing some checks, she returned and was surprisingly open about the two children, and their situation. I think some guidance counselors can be pretty pragmatic when walking the line between privacy laws, but also not turning away assistance to at risk youth, or to the community in the case of dangerous youth.

Mom and the kids were fine. Evidently mom heard that CPS had been by the school- again. Fearing the worst, she suddenly uhmm...."re-housed" her family to a rural area. The counselor explained that this is a common play for parents with CPS problems. Investigations must be re-started and most rural counties do not have a lot of resources to follow through.

 

[IceIce9]

I think motive is important in this case, and it could be simple as this... coupled with not wanting to go to school. In my opinion I don't think bullying and name calling are what's going on here, I think this kid had an I'll show you attitude, a kind of...you want me to go to school, fine, I'll go to school.

The shooter left his classroom and tried to return but the door automatically locked and he couldn’t get back inside. So he went into the next classroom because the door was open, and started shooting.

Since he first tried to get into his own classroom, and only entered the next classroom because the door was open.

So JMO he wasn’t targeting any certain students, just looking for an opportunity like an open door.

 

[Henry2326]

Startling fact.....since Sept 4, 30 students have been arrested in Georgia in different counties for school threats.....it's astounding.

Fayetteville student arrested for school threats made on social media

Almost a week after the deadly mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, young people are still being arrested in metro Atlanta and surrounding areas for making threats against schools.

www.fox5atlanta.com

 

[kaen]

I have a hard time believing that the FBI couldn't trace these messages. I mean every terrorist in the world uses a VPN--and I assume even more advanced tools to evade detection. Is a VPN really that foolproof against the FBI? And they did trace it--they traced it to him, partly. Do they really lack any other tools to get an answer? Or was this a matter of not having the will and dismissing the potential seriousness of it?

I'm a high school teacher and I just attempted to share concerns at my school about a student and the SRO didn't know the kid, didn't write down his name, and seemed a bit eye-rolly about it. That is still the pervasive attitude of most people I encounter--it could never happen here. We have no metal detectors and are sitting ducks basically.

If the FBi traced the call to his home, then it was someone in his home with a Discord account. The whole "my account got hacked" doesn't make sense if the routing to Discord came through their home. Either way these LE were unschooled and it is unfortunate that they are trying to catch bad guys. If they don't know about the technology why were they conducting the interview. If they thought that their stop to his house would stop him from following through on a threat, they were wrong. The video is clear that they were not really doing much to solve a crime. The dad basically ran the show. This video is a training video of what not to do with an online threat. JMHO.

 

[Chimera]

Police bodycam footage shows 2023 interview with Ga. school shooting suspect Colt Gray and father Colin Gray

Body camera footage released Monday showed the interview between Georgia police and suspected school shooter Colt Gray and his father, Colin, as part of a 2023 investigation.

www.yahoo.com

Questions and concerns remain on whether school officials mishandled warnings of a potential school shooting, especially as Colt’s mother, Marcee Gray, and other family members have spoken out about being in contact with the school as recently as 30 minutes before the shooting happened.
Rbm

They had 30 minutes to take prompt action.
That's a long time if there's an armed student in the school ready to unleash mayhem.
Smh.
If I were a parent or relative of the deceased, I'd be livid.

Notice how Colt is shifting his feet in the video.
He's nervous because (imo) he knows his discord wasn't hacked by a Russian spelling 'Adam Lanza' in Cyrillic.

Omo.

 

[Dotta]

"Interview transcripts reveal
that his sister is a former Henderson, Nevada police lieutenant,
who Colin asked to speak to the troubled teen
after authorities probed an FBI tip.

The report also details that Colt told his father
‘I’m a good boy Daddy,
I would never do it’
and said,
‘I don’t want to be caught up in any of that’.

The teenager reportedly believed that he would
‘make a great detective’,
because of his cyber skills."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1833862399549452488

 

[Sundog]

"Interview transcripts reveal
that his sister is a former Henderson, Nevada police lieutenant,
who Colin asked to speak to the troubled teen
after authorities probed an FBI tip.

The report also details that Colt told his father
‘I’m a good boy Daddy,
I would never do it’
and said,
‘I don’t want to be caught up in any of that’.

The teenager reportedly believed that he would
‘make a great detective’,
because of his cyber skills."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1833862399549452488

I hate that the media have dragged her into it. They need to leave her alone.

 

[Rita7]

Is there much discussed in the US about why there are likely just as many neglected, traumatised and angry teenaged girls in high schools but it seems largely boys who carry out these attacks?
Hypothetically, if we’re profiling spree killers, why should CG’s background raise red flags (excluding the posts that were obviously his imo) but the same background doesn’t raise red flags for his sister?

It's seems like a reasonable question, CredibleSauce.
Thus, one of the reasons but not the only one is different parental approaches for raising boys and girls.
IMOO

 

[MassGuy]

She was doing ok, then she kept writing…

https://twitter.com/x/status/1833885026854801863

 

[Dotta]

I hate that the media have dragged her into it. They need to leave her alone.

I guess
when he "enlisted" his former LE sister to help his son,
it might have let down authorities' vigilance concerning the teen and this family.

JMO

 

[iamshadow21]

She was doing ok, then she kept writing…

https://twitter.com/x/status/1833885026854801863

Me, me, me, mine, mine, mine...oh, yeah, sorry about those two dead kids, but pray for their killer and the rest of his family...

It's a serious faux pas, and if she didn't realise before, she certainly knows now. Radio silence would have served her better, but she is determined through everything she's said so far to paint her son as a victim.

Sure, he's had a rough time. But he killed four people who did nothing to him.

People can be both - victim and perpetrator. And until she swallows that medicine and accepts that fully, she should stick to pre prepared (by someone who knows PR) statements.

MOO

 

[nhmemorymaker]

Startling fact.....since Sept 4, 30 students have been arrested in Georgia in different counties for school threats.....it's astounding.

Fayetteville student arrested for school threats made on social media

Almost a week after the deadly mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, young people are still being arrested in metro Atlanta and surrounding areas for making threats against schools.

www.fox5atlanta.com

This IS startling. Soooo many and younger and younger.

 

[Breezie]

I guess
when he "enlisted" his former LE sister to help his son,
it might have let down authorities' vigilance concerning the teen and this family.

JMO

If he had only consulted with his sister before buying his son a weapon for Christmas, this might not have happened. She would have advised him to either pick a different present or to be certain that he locked everything up as a former LE.