By JEFF AMY
ATLANTA (AP) – The mother of a student in school with the boy accused of killing 4 people in a Shooting at highschool in Georgia says information that faculty officials had been warned that the boy was in crisis showed the shooting might have been prevented.
“The school failed them. They could have prevented these deaths, but they didn't,” Rabecca Sayarath told the Associated Press in a telephone interview 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 the college administration was apparently on the lookout for Colt Gray, the 14-year-old who was accused charged with quadruple murder before the shooting began.
Others refuse in charge the college or law enforcement.
“I'm not going to judge or second guess what happened to the authorities the other night,” U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat from Georgia, said Sunday on CNN's “State of the Union.” “I applaud our first responders. When others are running from danger, they are running toward danger to do the best they can.”
Officials say Gray shot Students Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, each 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, were injured. Eight other students and a teacher were injured – seven of them by gunfire – and are expected to get better soon.
Annie Brown told The Washington Post that her sister, Colt Gray's mother, sent her a text message saying she had spoken to a faculty counselor before the killings and warned staff of an “extreme emergency.” Brown said Marcee Gray urged her to seek out her son “immediately” to examine 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 was made to the college at 9:50 a.m. Arrest warrants for Gray say the shooting began at 10:20 a.m.
Brown confirmed the reporting The Reuters news agency told the Associated Press in text messages on Saturday, but declined to comment further.
Marcee Gray expressed her regret for Saturday's shootings to the Washington Post and the New York Post.
“I am so, so sorry and I cannot begin to imagine the pain and suffering they must be going through right now,” Gray said in a text message to The Washington Post.
“It's terrible. It's absolutely terrible,” Gray told the New York Post outside her father's house in Fitzgerald, Georgia, about 150 miles south of Atlanta.
Charles Polhamus, the boy's grandfather, has told multiple news outlets that Marcee Gray received a text message from her son apologizing on Wednesday. Polhamus told CNN that Marcee Gray drove to Winder, greater than 200 miles from Fitzgerald, immediately after the shooting.
The Washington Post also reported that relatives contacted the college per week before the shooting in regards to the boy's mental health and that Brown told a relative he was having “homicidal and suicidal thoughts.” The newspaper reported that the teenager's grandmother, Deborah Polhamus, visited a faculty counselor to ask for help.
The boy “starts with the therapist tomorrow,” Polhamus wrote in a text message to Brown after that meeting.
Investigators haven’t commented on what they consider Gray's motive might need been or whether or not they consider he was targeting specific victims.
Authorities said Gray’s father, Colin Gray, gave him access to the AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle utilized in the shooting. It's not clear how Gray got the gun on campus or what he did with it within the two hours between the beginning of classes at 8:15 a.m. and the primary shot.
Colin Gray is the primary parent of a faculty shooting suspect to be charged in Georgia, District Attorney Brad Smith said Friday. He is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and child abuse for giving his son the gun.
Colin Gray is in jail in Barrow County after refusing bail in a temporary court hearing Friday in Winder. Colt Gray is being held in a juvenile prison after refusing bail. Neither has been charged or entered a guilty plea.
Lyela Sayarath said Wednesday that Colt Gray left her algebra classroom and that she thought he was skipping class.
In the minutes before the shooting, a female administrator got here into her class on the lookout for a student with the identical last name and nearly an identical first name as Gray, she said. That other student was within the restroom, however the administrator demanded to see his bag. That student returned moments later along with his bag, Sayarath said, and told her administrators had concluded he was not the scholar they were on the lookout for.
Someone also called the teacher on the intercom, apparently asking for Gray, Sayarath said. She said when the intercom buzzed a second time, the teacher responded, “Oh, he's here,” when he saw Gray outside the classroom door.
When the scholars tried to open the door, which mechanically locks from the within when it’s closed, they backed away, Sayarath said. She said she saw Colt Gray turn away through the window within the door after which heard gunshots – “ten or fifteen at once, one after the other.”
Rabecca Sayarath, Lyela's mother, said she believes the college made a mistake by sending an unarmed administrator to look for Colt Gray as an alternative of considered one of Apalachee High School's armed security officers.
When she asked Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith about her daughter's statement at a press conference Wednesday evening, Smith warned, “With all due respect, ma'am, but 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 deputy sheriff in neighboring Jackson County in May 2023 after a shooting was reported online at a middle school attended by then-13-year-old Colt Gray.
Colt Gray told the deputy he would “never say something like that, even in jest,” in line with an investigators' report. No motion was taken because there was conflicting information in regards to the social media account from which the threats originated.
Colin Gray told the investigator on 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 that his son had been having problems since separating from his wife and that Colt had been bullied at college.
Nicole Valles, a spokeswoman for the Barrow County School District, declined to comment Sunday on emailed questions searching for more details in regards to the events leading as much as the shooting.
“Because this is an ongoing investigation and the trial has now begun, we are not commenting on specific details,” Valles wrote, referring inquiries to the district attorney.
Smith didn’t immediately reply to emails with similar questions Sunday, while the Georgia Bureau of Investigation referred requests for comment to the district attorney.
Originally published:
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