A mother's warning to a Georgia school raises questions about the shooting

The mother of a student at the Georgia high school where a teenager allegedly killed four people says information suggesting staff had been warned he was in crisis shows the shooting could 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 at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, that school officials had apparently been looking for Colt Gray, the 14-year-old charged with quadruple murder, before the shooting began.

Others refuse to blame the school 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.”

According to officials, Gray shot and killed students Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn (both 14) and teachers Richard Aspinwall (39) and Cristina Irimie (53). Eight other students and one teacher were injured – seven of them were shot – and are expected to recover.

Annie Brown told The Washington Post that her sister, Colt Gray's mother, sent her a text message saying she had spoken to a school counselor before the killings and warned staff of an “extreme emergency.” Brown said Marcee Gray urged her to find her son “immediately” to check 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 school at 9:50 a.m. Warrants for Gray's arrest say the shooting began at 10:20 a.m.

Brown confirmed the reporting to The Associated Press in a text message 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, more than 200 miles from Fitzgerald, immediately after the shooting.

The Washington Post also reported that relatives contacted the school a week before the shooting about the boy's mental health and that Brown told a relative he was having “homicidal and suicidal thoughts.” The newspaper reported that the teen's grandmother, Deborah Polhamus, visited a school counselor to ask for help.

The boy “starts with the therapist tomorrow,” Polhamus wrote in a text message to Brown after that meeting.

Investigators have not commented on what they believe Gray's motive might have been or whether they believe he was targeting specific victims.

Authorities have said Gray's father, Colin Gray, gave him access to the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle used in the shooting. It's unclear how Gray brought the weapon onto campus or what he did with it in the two hours between the start of classes at 8:15 a.m. and the first shooting.

Colin Gray is the first parent of a school 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 skipping bail in a brief court hearing Friday in Winder. Colt Gray is being held in a juvenile detention center after skipping 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 came into her class looking for a student with the same last name and nearly identical first name as Gray, she said. That other student was in the restroom, but the administrator demanded to see his bag. That student returned moments later with his bag, Sayarath said, and told her administrators had concluded he was not the student they were looking 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 students tried to open the door, which automatically locks from the inside when it is closed, they backed away, Sayarath said. She said she saw Colt Gray turn away and then heard gunshots – “ten or fifteen at once, one after the other.”

Rabecca Sayarath, Lyela's mother, said she believes the school made a mistake by sending an unarmed administrator to search for Colt Gray instead of 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,” according to an investigators' report. No action was taken because there was conflicting information about the social media account from which the threats originated.

Colin Gray told the investigator at the time that Colt had access to unloaded guns in the house 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 school.

Nicole Valles, a spokeswoman for the Barrow County School District, declined to comment Sunday on emailed questions seeking more details about the events leading up to the shooting.

“Because this is an ongoing investigation and the trial has now begun, we are not commenting on specific details,” Valles wrote, referring questions to the district attorney.

Smith did not immediately respond to emails with similar questions Sunday, while the Georgia Bureau of Investigation referred requests for comment to the district attorney.

Amy writes for the Associated Press.