Colt Gray: Georgia shooting suspect’s mother ‘called school 30 minutes before’ attack
The mother of the Georgia shooting suspect called the school 30 minutes warning of an “extreme emergency” before he allegedly opened fire there, his aunt has claimed.
Colt Gray, 14, is accused of shooting dead two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Winder, near Atlanta, on Wednesday.
Another teacher and a further eight students were injured but are expected to make a full recovery, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Annie Brown, the teenager’s aunt, has said her sister called the school counsellor half an hour before gunfire broke out.
She told the Washington Post the boy’s mother warned of an “extreme emergency” involving her son and that they needed to find him “immediately”.
Phone records shared with the newspaper, and later confirmed by the Associated Press, show a 10-minute call was made from the family’s shared phone plan to the school at that time.
Colt Gray at Barrow County courthouse on Friday. Pic: AP
Gray appeared in court on Friday when he was charged as an adult with the murders of Mason Schermerhorn, 14, Christian Angulo, 14, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53.
His father Colin Gray, 54, also appeared in court and has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder for allowing his son to get hold of a weapon.
Colin Gray. Pic: Barrow County Sheriff’s Office
Father interviewed over shooting threats last year
Colin Gray was interviewed by police last year over threats his son made on the gaming platform Discord that he might carry out a shooting.
He told officials he had hunting guns locked in a safe in the family home – but his son did not have access to them.
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He said the teenager had struggled with his parents’ separation and often got picked on at school.
“He knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do, and how to use them and not use them,” the boy’s father said, according to a transcript of the interview.
He also mentioned his son becoming “flustered under pressure” and “not really thinking straight”.
“I don’t want him to fight anybody, but they just keep like pinching him and touching him,” he told investigators in May 2023.
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School shooting suspect previously investigated
But ultimately the case was closed after neither Colt nor Colin Gray were successfully linked to the Discord account the threats were made from.
There were no grounds to confiscate the family’s guns either, according to police reports released by the sheriff’s office.
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Colin Gray bought his son an AR-style rifle as a gift after the pair were questioned, law enforcement sources told NBC News.
On Friday a judge ruled that the teenager would not face the death penalty because, as a juvenile, the maximum sentence he can receive is life without parole.
Police officers found a handgun, a silencer and a red notebook described as a “manifesto” when they arrested Luigi Mangione.
The 27-year-old was arrested in December 2024 and charged with killing UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson in New York City.
Mangione‘s lawyers want to block prosecutors from showing or telling jurors at his eventual trial in Manhattan about statements he allegedly made and items they said police seized from his backpack during his arrest at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania.
The objects include a 9mm handgun prosecutors say matches the one used in the killing, a silencer, a magazine with bullets wrapped in underwear and a notebook in which they say Mangione described his intent to “wack” a healthcare executive.
Mangione with his attorney. Pic: Reuters
The defence contends the items should be excluded because police did not get a warrant before searching Mangione’s backpack.
Prosecutors deny claims Mangione was illegally searched and questioned.
They also want to suppress some statements he made to police, such as allegedly giving a false name, because officers asked him questions before telling him he had a right to remain silent.
Last week, Mangione watched surveillance videos of the killing of Mr Thompson, 50, as he walked to a New York City hotel for his company’s annual investor conference.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state and federal murder charges.
The state charges carry the possibility of life in prison, while federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
This week’s hearing concerns only the state case, but Mangione’s lawyers want to bar evidence from both cases.
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In September, a judge dismissed two terrorism counts against Mangione, finding prosecutors had not presented enough evidence Mangione intended to intimidate health insurance workers or influence government policy.
Trial dates are yet to be set in either the state or federal cases.
Paramount has launched a £108.4bn hostile bid for Warner Bros, challenging Netflix, which had reached a $72bn takeover deal with the company.
Paramount said on Monday that it was going straight to Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) shareholders with a $30 per share in cash offer for the entirety of the company, including its Global Networks segment, asking them to reject the deal with Netflix.
On Friday Netflix struck a deal to buy WBD, the Hollywood giant behind “Harry Potter” and HBO Max
The agreement means Warner Bros Discovery’s library of film and TV successes including Harry Potter and Game Of Thrones will come under the same roof as Stranger Things and Squid Game.
The cash and stock deal is valued at $27.75 per Warner share, giving it a total enterprise value of $82.7 billion, including debt.
But Paramount says its deal will pay $30 cash per share, representing $18 billion more in cash than its rivals are offering.
In a statement, Paramount said it was making a “strategically and financially compelling offer to WBD shareholders” and a “superior alternative to the Netflix transaction”.
File pic: iStock
David Ellison, chairman and CEO of Paramount, said: “WBD shareholders deserve an opportunity to consider our superior all-cash offer for their shares in the entire company.
“Our public offer, which is on the same terms we provided to the Warner Bros. Discovery Board of Directors in private, provides superior value, and a more certain and quicker path to completion.
“We believe the WBD Board of Directors is pursuing an inferior proposal which exposes shareholders to a mix of cash and stock, an uncertain future trading value of the Global Networks linear cable business and a challenging regulatory approval process.
“We are taking our offer directly to shareholders to give them the opportunity to act in their own best interests and maximize the value of their shares.”
Paramount said it had submitted six proposals to WBD in the course of 12 weeks, but that they were never “meaningfully” engaged with.
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