Mother of Georgia attacker said she called school before attack, report says

WINDER, Ga. (AP) — The mother of the 14-year-old boy accused of killing four people at a rural Georgia high school said she informed the school counselor the morning of the shooting that there was an “extreme emergency” and her son needed to be found, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

Police received reports of shootings at Apalachee High School around 10:20 a.m. Wednesday. The attack killed two teachers, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and two students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and injured nine others. The call log obtained by The Post shows that Marcee Gray, the mother of the suspected shooter, made a 10-minute call to the school about a half-hour before the shooting began.

“I was the one who notified the high school counselor,” Gray said in a text message to her sister Annie Brown, according to a screenshot of the conversation obtained by The Post. “I told them it was an extreme emergency and to go immediately and [my son] to check on him.”

Brown declined to elaborate on what prompted Gray to alert the school, but Charles Polhamus, the suspects' grandfather, told the New York Post on Saturday that Gray rushed to Winder, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, after receiving a text message from her son that read, “I'm sorry, Mom.”

Brown and Polhamus both declined to comment when contacted by USA TODAY. Gray and officials with the Barrow County school system did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The 14-year-old suspect, Colt Gray, has been charged with four counts of murder and is being held without bail in a juvenile hall. His father, Colin Gray, 54, was also charged Friday with four counts of manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of child abuse. Neither son nor father entered a guilty plea or requested bail during their respective hearings.

Contributors: Christopher Cann, Eve Chen, Claire Thornton, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Report: Georgia attacker's mother called school before attack