Mother’s warning to Georgia school about suspect raises questions about moments before shooting
ATLANTA– The mother of a student in class with the boy accused of killing four people in a Georgia high school shooting According to information that school officials were alerted that the boy was in crisis, it appears the shooting could have been prevented.
“The school failed them, that they could have prevented these deaths and they didn’t,” Rabecca Sayarath said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Sunday. “I really, really feel that way.”
Sayarath’s daughter, Lyela, told reporters on Wednesday, the day of the shooting in Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, that administrators appeared to be searching for Colt Gray, the 14-year-old who is accused on four counts of murder before the shooting began.
Others, however, refuse to place blame on the school or law enforcement.
“I’m not going to judge or second-guess what happened the other night with the authorities,” U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I applaud our first responders. When others are running away from danger, they’re running toward danger to do the best they can.”
Officials say Gray shot dead students Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, both 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53. Eight other students and one teacher were injured — seven of them shot — and are expected to recover.
Annie Brown told The Washington Post that her sister, Colt Gray’s mother, texted her saying she had spoken to a school counselor and warned staff of an “extreme emergency” before the killings. Brown said Marcee Gray urged them to find her son “immediately” to check on him.
Brown provided screenshots of the text exchange to the newspaper, which also reported that a call log from the family’s shared phone plan showed a call to the school at 9:50 a.m. The shooting began at 10:20 a.m., according to warrants for Gray’s arrest.
Brown confirmed the reports Saturday in text messages to The Associated Press, but declined to comment further.
Marcee Gray expressed regret for the shooting to The Washington Post and The New York Post on Saturday.
“I am so deeply sorry and cannot imagine the pain and suffering they are going through right now,” Gray told The Washington Post in a text message.
“It’s horrible. It’s absolutely horrible,” Gray told The New York Post outside her father’s home in Fitzgerald, Georgia, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) south of Atlanta.
Charles Polhamus, the boy’s grandfather, told multiple news outlets that Marcee Gray received a text message from her son on Wednesday saying he was sorry. Polhamus told CNN that Marcee Gray drove to Winder, more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) away from Fitzgerald, immediately after the shooting.
The Washington Post also reported that texts show that family members had contacted the school about the boy’s mental health a week before the shooting, and that Brown had told a family member he was having “homicidal and suicidal thoughts.” The newspaper reported that the teen’s grandmother, Deborah Polhamus, had spoken to a school counselor seeking help.
The boy “starts seeing a therapist tomorrow,” Polhamus wrote in a text message to Brown after that meeting.
Investigators have not said what they believe Gray’s motive was or whether he selected specific victims.
Authorities have said that Gray’s father, Colin Gray, gave him access to the semi-automatic AR-15-style rifle used in the shooting. It’s unclear how Gray got the rifle onto campus or what he did with it in the two hours between the start of school at 8:15 a.m. and when the first shots rang out.
Colin Gray is the first parent of a school shooting suspect to be charged in Georgia, District Attorney Brad Smith said Friday. He is charged with second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children for giving his son the gun.
Colin Gray was jailed in Barrow County after refusing to post bail in a brief court appearance Friday in Winder. Colt Gray is being held in a juvenile detention center after refusing to post bail. Neither has been charged or entered a plea.
Lyela Sayarath said Wednesday that Colt Gray had left her math class and she believed he was skipping school.
In the minutes before the shooting, a female administrator came to her classroom looking for a student with the same last name and nearly identical first name as Gray, she said. That other student was in the bathroom, but the administrator demanded to see his bag. That student returned a short time later with his bag, Sayarath said, and told her that administrators had concluded he was not the student they were looking for.
Someone also called the teacher on the intercom, apparently asking for Gray, Sayarath said. She said that when the intercom buzzed a second time, the teacher responded, “Oh, he’s here,” and saw Gray outside the classroom door.
When the students tried to open the door, which automatically locks from the inside when closed, Sayarath said they backed away. She said she saw Colt Gray turn away from the door window and then she heard gunshots — “10 or 15 at a time, one after the other.”
Rabecca Sayarath, Lyela’s mother, said she believes the school made a mistake by sending an unarmed driver to Colt Gray instead of one of Apalachee High’s armed school officers.
When she questioned Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith about her daughter’s story at a press conference Wednesday night, Smith warned, “With all due respect, ma’am, I believe your information is incorrect.”
It is unclear whether Barrow County school authorities knew before the shooting that Colt and Colin Gray had already been questioned by a sheriff’s deputy in neighboring Jackson County in May 2023 after a report was made of an online threat to shoot up a high school where Colt Gray, then 13, attended.
Colt Gray told the officer that “he would never say something like that, even as a joke,” according to a report filed by investigators. No action was taken due to inconsistent information about the social media account used to make the threats.
Colin Gray told the investigator at the time that Colt had access to unloaded guns in the home, but knew “how to use them and how not to use them.” He also said his son had been struggling since he and his wife split and that Colt had been bullied at school.
Nicole Valles, a spokesperson for the Barrow County School District, declined to comment Sunday in response to emailed questions seeking more details about what may have happened before the shooting.
“Because this is an ongoing investigation and litigation has now begun, we are not commenting on specific details,” Valles wrote, referring to the district attorney.
Smith did not immediately respond to emails with similar questions Sunday, while the Georgia Bureau of Investigation referred requests for comment to the district attorney.