New details revealed about Georgia school shooting suspect’s actions in lead-up to attack

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

New details have been revealed about the Georgia school shooting suspect’s actions leading up to the attack which left two teachers and two students dead.

Colt Gray, 14, hid the assault-style rifle in his backpack and brought it to Apalachee High School, Winder, on the morning of September 4, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in an update on Thursday.

During the second period, he was then allowed to leave the classroom, taking his backpack with him and hiding from teachers in the bathroom, the GBI said.

“Colt Gray brought the gun into the school on his own. The assault-style rife could not be broken down, but Gray hid it in his backpack. Gray asked a teacher if he could go to the front office and speak to someone,” the bureau said.

“The teacher allowed him to leave and take his belongings with him. Gray went to the restroom and hid from teachers. Later, he took out the rifle, and began shooting.”

The 14-year-old’s classmate Lyela Sayarath previously revealed she had been sat “elbow to elbow” with the alleged shooter in algebra class before he got up and left the room that morning.

The accused mass shooter then returned and tried to get back into the classroom, the 16-year-old told CNN.

But when a student went to open the door for him, they “backed up” presumably having noticed the firearm, she said. “I’m pretty sure she saw that he had a gun and so she backed away,” Sayarath said.

Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith also confirmed on Thursday that Colt had only been at the school for three days before the shooting, Fox5 Atlanta reported.

The new information about the morning of the shooting comes as Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns – a Republican – has called for new gun safety and mental health measures.

The Republican said in a letter he is “committed to pursuing additional policies” to ensure a tragedy like this “never happens” in the state again.

“We are aware that a breakdown in communication between school systems and law enforcement officials allowed the shooter’s prior history to slip through the cracks upon his transfer to Apalachee High School,” he said.

“We must ensure our schools have the tools they need to coordinate resources for students who require mental health intervention.” Burns also called for new technologies to detect firearms before students enter schools.

The teenager has been charged with four counts of murder for the killings of fellow students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and math teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53.

His father, Colin Gray, has also been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder, and eight counts of cruelty to children after he allegedly bought his son the AR-style rifle as a Christmas present. He is currently being held without bond at the Barrow County Detention Center where he has filed a motion to be separated from the other inmates, after getting an “incalculable number of threats.”

Authorities released bodycam footage earlier this week of an interview with the suspect and his father last May.

Jackson County Sheriff’s Office deputies interviewed the then-13-year-old and his father after receiving an FBI tip that the teen was threatening to shoot up a middle school on the social media platform Discord.

The interviews, conducted by two sheriff’s deputies on May 21 2023, took place outside the home where the father and son lived, where a large blue “G” hung on the Grays’ door.

The footage begins with two deputies approaching the Georgia home and the teen’s father answering the door in a t-shirt, shorts and a silver cross necklace dangling from his neck.

When the deputy asked whether his son plays video games, he replied: “Yeah he does. Plays ‘em all the time.”

Gray then admitted that he had weapons in the home. When a deputy asked whether they were accessible to the teen, Gray said: “They are. I mean, there’s nothing loaded but they are down.”

Gray then started rattling off his son’s shooting experience: “We do a lot of shooting. We do a lot of deer hunting. He shot his first deer this year.”

He denied knowing anything about his son threatening to shoot up a school. “I don’t know anything about him saying s***like that. And I’m going to be mad as hell if he did, and then all the guns will go away and they won’t be accessible,” he told officers. “I’m trying to teach him about firearms and safety and how to do it all and get him interested in the outdoors.”

Colt also denied making the threats on Discord to law enforcement.