Prosecutors say Georgia father bought his teen a gun despite warning signs before 2024 school shooting

By Eric Levenson, Nicki Brown, CNN

(CNN) — Jurors heard opening statements Monday morning in the trial of Colin Gray, the father of the teenager who allegedly killed four people at his Georgia high school in 2024 – the latest case testing the limits of who is responsible for a school shooting.

Gray, the father of Colt Gray, has pleaded not guilty to nearly 30 charges, including two counts each of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.

“This is not a case about holding parents accountable for what their children do. That’s not what this case is about,” Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith said in his opening statement. “This case is about this defendant and his actions – his actions in allowing a child that he has custody over access to a firearm and ammunition after being warned that that child was going to harm others.”

Defense attorney Brian Hobbs told jurors that Colin Gray cannot be held criminally responsible because he was unaware that his son was allegedly planning the shooting.

“When someone conceals a plan, deceives the people around them, acts independently, the law does not allow us to pretend that the people left behind should’ve seen through all of it,” Hobbs said.

The case stems from the shooting at Apalachee High School in September 2024, when then-14-year-old Colt Gray allegedly used an AR15-style rifle to kill two students and two teachers and injure nine others. He ultimately surrendered to police and has admitted to the shooting, according to authorities.

More than a year earlier, law enforcement had questioned the teen and his father about “online threats to commit a school shooting,” though no charges were filed, authorities said. Even so, Colin Gray bought a firearm for his son as a Christmas present in December 2023 – the same firearm he used in the mass shooting, according to two law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the investigation.

The indictment alleges Gray allowed his teenage son access to a firearm and ammunition after receiving “sufficient warning” that his son would harm and endanger others, actions that constitute “criminal negligence” by “consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk.”

“Seven months after he was told by Jackson County Sheriff’s Office of possible school shooter threats and being asked to restrict Colt’s access to guns, the defendant buys and gives 13-year-old Colt that SIG Sauer M400 as his Christmas present,” Smith said Monday.

Gray allowed his son to keep the gun in his room despite several warning signs that Colt Gray was beginning to “spiral out of control,” Smith said.

On Colt Gray’s first day at Apalachee High School in August 2024, he texted his father, “Whenever something happens, just know the blood is on your hands,” according to Smith. Later that week, Colt Gray shoved his mother to the ground when she tried to take the gun away and, separately, asked his father to buy him 150 rounds of ammunition, Smith said.

The defense, however, portrayed Colin Gray as an engaged father who was actively trying to get his son mental health treatment.

Colt Gray was initially planning the attack for February 2025 to coincide with the seventh anniversary of the Parkland school shooting, Hobbs said. But the teen sped up the timeline because of his father’s efforts to get him treatment, the defense attorney said. Colin Gray had set up an appointment for his son to meet with mental health specialists on September 5, 2024, the day after the shooting, according to Hobbs.

“The father was not ignoring the problem. Colin Gray was acting,” Hobbs said.

Colin Gray’s trial is part of a broader push to hold more people accountable for a school shooting, including the shooter’s parents and responding law enforcement officers.

This case bears close similarities to the trials of James and Jennifer Crumbley, whose then-15-year-old son killed four students in 2021 at his high school in Oxford, Michigan. The Crumbley parents were each convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison. Their son was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Colin Gray has remained behind bars since his arrest a day after the shooting. If convicted, he faces 10 to 30 years in prison on each murder charge and 1 to 10 years on each manslaughter charge.

Colt Gray, now 16, has been indicted on 55 felony counts, including four counts of malice murder, according to court documents. He has pleaded not guilty, although a defense attorney last year raised the possibility he may change his plea. A trial date has not been set.

Jurors see glimpse of school surveillance video

In Colin Gray’s case, the state has indicated it plans to seek testimony from members of Gray’s family, shooting survivors and behavioral health experts. The trial is expected to last about three weeks.

Testimony began Monday with witnesses from the school system and local law enforcement. The first, Lt. Barry Chandler with the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office, said the emergency alert system, which notified law enforcement of the shooting, was connected to the 911 system just months before the attack.

Prosecutors then called Matt Thompson, a deputy superintendent for the Barrow County School System, who walked the court through excerpts of surveillance footage captured on a school bus and inside Apalachee High School.

Prosecutors briefly displayed video that appeared to show Colt Gray holding a backpack with a large poster board sticking out of it as he got on a school bus the morning of the shooting. In his opening statement, Smith said the teen had wrapped a poster board around the part of the gun that stuck out of his bag.

Prosecutors said more surveillance footage would be played later in the trial.

What happened at the shooting

The mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, occurred the morning of September 4, 2024.

Colt left algebra class at 9:45 a.m., and gunshots were soon heard in a nearby classroom, a student told CNN at the time. The gun had been hidden in his backpack, authorities said.

The first report of an active shooter came in around 10:20 a.m., authorities said.

“I heard gunshots outside my classroom and people screaming, people begging not to get shot,” said then-14-year-old student Macey Right. “And then people sitting beside me (were) just shaking and crying.”

A resource officer confronted the shooter, who immediately surrendered and was taken into custody, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said. The suspect told investigators, “I did it,” while being questioned, according to Smith.

Investigators with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation allege the firearm used in the attack had been purchased by his father despite an earlier concern from law enforcement about the teen.

Colt Gray had been questioned by law enforcement in May 2023 regarding “several anonymous tips about online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location and time,” according to a joint statement from FBI Atlanta and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office. The online threats included photographs of guns, according to the statement.

Colt Gray denied making the threats online, the statement said. Jackson County alerted local schools to continue monitoring the issue, but law enforcement did not have probable cause to arrest or take other actions, according to the statement.

Colin Gray told officers he had guns in the house and his son had access to them, video of the interview shows.

“We do a lot of shooting. We do a lot of deer hunting. He shot his first deer this year,” he said. “I’m trying to teach him about firearms and safety and how to do it all and get him interested in the outdoors.”

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CNN’s Devon M. Sayers, Isabel Rosales and Chris Youd contributed to this report.