Georgia high school shooting suspect does not enter plea in his first court appearance

WXIA, CNN

By Ashley R. Williams, Holly Yan, Mark Morales, Ryan Young, Isabel Rosales and Chelsea Bailey, CNN

(CNN) — The 14-year-old Apalachee High School student charged in connection with a shooting that left two students and two teachers dead did not enter a plea during his first appearance in court Friday.

Colt Gray was arraigned in a Barrow County courtroom on four counts of felony murder stemming from a school shooting that’s left a small north Georgia community grieving.

Officers escorted the teenager into the courtroom shackled, his long hair obscuring parts of his face throughout the proceeding.

LIVE UPDATES: The latest on the Georgia high school shooting

Judge Currie Mingledorff informed Gray of his rights and said the maximum penalty for the charges in his case life in prison.

Prosecutors allege the teen fired an AR-style rifle on campus Wednesday morning, killing four people, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Nine others were injured, all but two of whom were shot, the GBI said.

Gray’s father, Colin Gray, 54, is expected to appear in the same courtroom later Friday morning to be arraigned on four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children, court officials said.

“A young person brought a gun into a school and committed an evil act and he took lives and he injured many other people — not only physically but mentally,” Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said at a news conference Thursday night.

The family of victims of the school shooting sat in the first row in the small courtroom. One woman held a doll of the Disney character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, while others wiped away tears.

Wednesday’s mass shooting marked the 45th school shooting of 2024 and the deadliest US school shooting since the March 2023 massacre at The Covenant School in Nashville in which six people died.

Here’s what we know so far:

• Teenage suspect to be tried as an adult: Colt Gray, who is being held at the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, is slated to remain there while in custody until he turns 17 despite his case being moved to the adult system, Glenn Allen, the agency’s spokesperson, told CNN Thursday. Under Georgia law, a juvenile aged 13 to 17 who commits a serious crime is automatically tried as an adult. Colt Gray is cooperating with investigators, authorities said.

• The four killed have been identified: Wednesday’s deadly shooting at Apalachee High School claimed the lives of two 14-year-old students – Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, as well as two teachers – 53-year-old math teacher Cristina Irimie and 39-year-old assistant football coach Richard Aspinwall, who also taught math. Authorities say Irimie was celebrating her birthday with her students the day she was shot and killed, according to a family friend.

• The nine injured are expected to make a full recovery: Of the nine other people injured, seven of them – six students and a teacher – were shot, the GBI said Thursday. The other two – both students – suffered other injuries, the GBI said. The nine are expected to fully recover from their injuries, Smith said Thursday.

• Shooting suspect questioned about online threats last year: In May 2023, law enforcement officials questioned Colt Gray and his father about “online threats to commit a school shooting” that included photos of guns, according to a joint statement from FBI Atlanta and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office. Colt Gray, who was 13 at the time, told investigators during that interview that “someone is accusing him of threatening to shoot up a school, stating that he would never say such a thing, even in a joking manner,” authorities said. Authorities could not substantiate the threats and the investigation was closed, according to the sheriff’s office.

• Other schools received threats, investigators say: Apalachee High School received a phone threat on Wednesday morning, before shots rang out on the school’s campus, warning of shootings that would happen at five schools including Apalachee High, multiple law enforcement officials told CNN. It is unclear who placed that call, and investigators found no evidence of other schools being targeted but are pursuing “any leads of any potential associates of the shooter that was involved in this incident,” according to Hosey.

• Suspect’s father bought gun involved in shooting as present: Before the charges against Colin Gray were announced Thursday, two law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the investigation said he told authorities he purchased the AR-style rifle used in the Apalachee High School shooting as a holiday present for his son in December 2023. That would put the gun purchase months after authorities initially contacted Colin Gray and his family as they investigated a school shooting threat last year.

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CNN’s Elise Hammond, David Williams, Sara Smart, Dalia Faheid, Zenebou Sylla, Devon Sayers, John Miller, Curt Devine, Casey Tolan, Nick Valencia, Rebekah Riess, David Williams, Dakin Andone, Sharif Paget, Melissa Alonso, Andy Rose, Caroll Alvarado, Jaide Timm-Garcia, Shawn Nottingham, Curt Devine, Yahya Abou-Ghazala and Cindy Von Quednow contributed to this report.