School shooting in Georgia: Teenager's deadly rampage shocks state
Colt Gray, on Wednesday, entered his Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, and opened fire on the students and teachers present. Investigators determined that the AR-15 rifle he used was a Christmas present from his father.
14-year-old entered the school. Four people are dead
Colt Gray enrolled in Apalachee High School in Winder literally two weeks ago. Wednesday was supposed to be his second day of school. Instead, it turned into a day of bloody massacre.
It was 8:45am GMT. His classmate, Leyla Sayerath, recounted that she was sitting next to Colt in algebra class a few minutes before the shooting began. Colt left the class, but not to go to the bathroom. When he returned, one of the students stood up to open the door for him but did not as they saw Colt holding a gun.
Unfortunately, the neighbouring classroom was open. Colt wounded a total of 13 people in the entire school, four of them fatally. The victims of the shooting included 14-year-old students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo and the teachers, 39-year-old Richard Aspenwall and 53-year-old Christina Irimie.
This was the deadliest school shooting in the history of the state of Georgia.
Police searched the teenager's home after the shooting and found evidence that Colt Gray had an obsession with mass shootings, particularly the Parkland high school massacre, during which 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz shot 17 people.
14-year-old murdered peers and teachers. The FBI already questioned him
Colt and his father were supposed to be questioned by the FBI concerning alleged threats several months ago. Today it is known that the teenager received the rifle as a Christmas present from his father.
A few months ago, Colt and Colin Gray were questioned because Colt had posted threats about a school shooting on the social media platform Discord. However, in a conversation with the FBI, Colt swore that he "would never say such a thing, not even jokingly".
The investigator wrote in the report that no arrests were made due to "inconsistent information" on the Discord account, which contained profile information in Russian and a digital trace indicating it was accessed from various cities in Georgia, as well as Buffalo, New York.
Investigators claim they did everything they could at the time and there was nothing indicating that a school shooting would occur on 4 September this year.
We didn't fail at all. We did everything we could with what we had at the time - Jackson County Sheriff Janis Magnum told the Associated Press.
Colt Gray claimed that he closed his Discord account after it was hacked multiple times. The account name was written in Russian. After translation, it was found that it contained the name Lanza. Adam Lanza was the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012, during which he murdered 26 people, including 20 children aged 6 and 7.
Investigators closed the case at that time as they couldn't prove that Colt was in any way linked to the Discord account where the threats were posted.
Colt remains in juvenile detention in Georgia, and his first trial will begin on 6 September. It is known that he will be tried as an adult.
