The 14-year-old student responsible for the deadly shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia, which claimed the lives of four people, had previously been questioned by police about online threats, the FBI revealed. The teenager, Colt Gray, was investigated in May 2023 after police received reports linking him to internet posts that featured images of guns and warned of an impending school shooting.
The FBI’s National Threat Operations Center had alerted local law enforcement after receiving tips about “online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location and time.” Following the investigation, police interviewed Colt Gray and his father, who admitted to having hunting guns in their home but claimed that his son did not have unsupervised access to them.
Despite the concerning nature of the threats, the FBI stated that at the time, there was no probable cause to arrest Gray or take further action at the local, state, or federal levels.
On Wednesday, Colt Gray used an assault rifle to open fire at Apalachee High School, killing two teachers and two students. The attack left eight other students and one teacher injured. Gray was apprehended on the school premises and is expected to be tried as an adult.
The school went into a “hard lockdown” following reports of gunfire. Survivors recalled the terrifying moments, with one student recounting how Gray left a classroom after a math lesson, only to return with a gun in hand. A classmate refused to open the door for him as he pounded on it before moving on to another classroom where he opened fire.
