A Gunman Kills at School and Prosecutors Again Focus on the Suspect鈥檚 Parent
Just months after an unprecedented parental conviction in Michigan, Georgia prosecutors allege a father鈥檚 actions led to a mass school shooting.
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Colin Gray never pulled a trigger at Apalachee High School 鈥 where a mass shooting this week left two 14-year-old students and two math teachers dead 鈥 but he could still spend the rest of his life behind bars for murder.
The 54-year-old father Friday morning on second-degree murder charges that stem from allegations his 14-year-old son carried out the attack and later told investigators, 鈥淚 did it.鈥
The father, prosecutors allege, was the gun supplier. Gray bought his son an AR 15-style rifle as a holiday gift in December 2023 鈥渨ith knowledge he was a threat to himself and others,鈥 according to an arrest affidavit obtained by CNN. Then, the boy used that same gun, police allege, to kill his classmates and the two teachers and injure nine others. Like those before it, the shooting left a much wider swath of trauma that District Attorney Brad Smith referred to Friday.
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 have to have been physically injured in this to be a victim,鈥 Smith said 鈥淓veryone in this community is a victim. Every child in that school was a victim.鈥
The charges fall in line with a law enforcement strategy that鈥檚 emerged in the last year to thwart a record number of mass school shootings, which federal data show are most often carried out by aggrieved students with guns obtained 鈥 either as a gift or without permission 鈥 from close family members.
Prosecutors have turned their focus to the killers鈥 parents.
Just months ago, in early April, Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were each given decade-long prison sentences in first-of-their-kind convictions: They were held directly accountable for a school shooting that was carried out by their 15-year-old son in 2021 that killed four students.
In both cases, according to prosecutors, parents gave gifts to their kids that were later used to commit mass murder despite knowing that their children were on the brink of acting violently. Still, legal experts said the Crumbley prosecution 鈥 which Georgia officials have set the groundwork to replicate 鈥 reverses a bedrock legal principle that people cannot be held liable for the actions of others.
鈥淟ook, I thought this case could go either way and still when the result came out I was a bit stunned because it鈥檚 such a deep legal principle,鈥 Ekow Yankah, a University of Michigan law professor, told 麻豆精品 in February after Jennifer Crumbley鈥檚 landmark conviction.
鈥淢aybe this kind of case will have an effect,鈥 he said. 鈥淢aybe parents will be more attentive.鈥
In Michigan, the shooter 鈥 to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty 鈥 was gifted a 9-millimeter pistol for Christmas that he later celebrated online as 鈥渕y new beauty.鈥 In Georgia, that Gray allegedly gave to prosecutors puts his gift weapon purchase just months after investigators questioned the father and son about reported online threats of a school shooting.
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Last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation that the then-13-year-old posted on the social media site Discord a threat to 鈥渟hoot up a middle school.鈥 Local police investigated the tip but failed to link the Discord comments to the teen, even though the account traced back to the boy鈥檚 email address. The boy denied making the threats and claimed he deleted the account because it kept getting hacked. Written in Russian, the translated to the last name of the shooter behind the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
The New York Times reported this week that police searching the teen鈥檚 room found evidence of his interest in , particularly the 2018 killings in Parkland, Florida.
Meanwhile, Colin Gray acknowledged to police he had hunting rifles at home but that his son did not have 鈥渦nfettered鈥 access to them.
Charges filed against Gray include four counts of involuntary manslaughter, eight counts of cruelty to children 鈥 and two counts of murder in the second degree. His son, whose age makes him ineligible for the death penalty, will be tried as an adult, prosecutors said, and faces life in prison on four counts of murder. Lawyers for the father and son did not seek bail and the two
Though the Crumbley case in Michigan presented a novel conviction, it wasn鈥檛 the first time a parent has been held legally responsible for crimes committed by their children 鈥攊ncluding in helping their child secure a firearm later used in a mass shooting. Last year, an Illinois father pleaded guilty to misdemeanor reckless conduct on charges stemming from a shooting that his son carried out in 2022 at an Independence Day parade in suburban Chicago. That case centered on how his son, who was 19 at the time, obtained a gun license.聽
In Texas, meanwhile, survivors of the 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School to hold the gunman鈥檚 parents accountable for the carnage. In a civil case filed by survivors and victim鈥檚 family members, a jury found Antonios Pagourtzis and Rose Marie Kosmetatos were not liable of negligence after being accused of failing to secure their guns at home and ignoring violent warning signs before their 17-year-old son opened fire at his high school and killed eight students and two teachers.聽
Outside of courtrooms, other firearm measures passed at the state level in recent years have sought to tackle parents鈥 role in mass casualty events carried out by their offspring. now have laws requiring gun owners to keep their weapons locked up or that penalize them if a child gains access.
Georgia lacks both secure storage and child-access laws, according to an . A new state law, however, seeks to incentivize parental responsibility.
, the new law who purchase firearm safety devices like gun safes and trigger locks. A similar incentive was rolled out in Virginia in 2023, providing a tax break of up to $300. In its first year, accepted the deal.
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