The daddy of the 14-year-old charged with homicide within the taking pictures at a highschool in Georgia purchased his son an AR-15 fashion rifle as a present, based on two legislation enforcement sources acquainted with the investigation.
The daddy gave his son the firearm sooner or later after the 2 had been interviewed by legislation enforcement in reference to threats to hold out a college taking pictures, the sources mentioned.
Legislation enforcement officers didn’t arrest {the teenager} after that Could 2023 interview as a result of they may not tie him to a web based account that had made the threats, based on newly launched paperwork.
The teenager, Colt Grey, fatally shot 4 folks — two lecturers and two college students — on Wednesday at Apalachee Excessive Faculty in Winder on his first full day as a brand new scholar there, authorities mentioned. He has been charged as an grownup.
His father, Colin Grey, 54, was arrested on allegations that he allowed his son to own a weapon, and charged with 4 counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree homicide and eight counts of cruelty to kids, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation mentioned Thursday.
The teenage suspect had additionally proven curiosity in prior mass shootings, significantly the 2018 bloodbath at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty in Parkland, Florida, based on two senior legislation enforcement officers briefed on the investigation.
The knowledge got here because of the searches performed within the investigation into the taking pictures.
The Jackson County Sheriff’s Workplace interviewed {the teenager} and his father after the FBI acquired a tip in Could 2023 from a consumer on Discord, a chat platform standard with on-line online game lovers, about on-line threats to commit a taking pictures at a center college, based on investigative paperwork.
The FBI traced the Discord account to an individual with the identical identify as the teenager’s father and referred the case to the sheriff’s division in Jackson County, the place the teenager was enrolled at Jefferson Center Faculty, based on the paperwork.
{The teenager} mentioned he wasn’t acquainted with Discord and didn’t play video video games. The teenager informed the sheriff’s workplace that he as soon as had a Discord account however had deleted it. The teenager denied making any on-line threats and “expressed concern that somebody is accusing him of threatening to shoot up a college, stating that he would by no means say such a factor, even in a joking method,” the paperwork state.
The native authorities finally “cleared” the case as a result of the FBI tip was inconsistent with the knowledge found throughout their investigation, based on the paperwork.
Among the many inconsistencies, based on the paperwork, was that the Discord account was related to the teenager’s electronic mail tackle, however the telephone quantity on the account didn’t match the teenager’s.
The account was traced to a collection of potential IP addresses in Buffalo, New York, and in different components of Georgia, together with Fort Valley and Statesboro, the place the teenager had not lived, based on the investigative report.
The e-mail related to the consumer’s profile identify was written in Russian and translated to the final identify of a college shooter. The teenager’s father informed an investigator that neither he nor his son spoke Russian, the report mentioned.
The teenager mentioned he was not energetic on Discord on the time the menace was made and had stopped utilizing it as a result of his account had been hacked a number of occasions “and he was afraid somebody would use his data for nefarious functions,” based on the report.
The legislation enforcement official informed the teenager’s dad that he couldn’t substantiate the tip from the FBI or that the daddy or son was behind the Discord account that made the menace. The case was then cleared, however Jackson County authorities “alerted native colleges for continued monitoring of the topic,” the FBI mentioned Wednesday.
It’s not clear whether or not Barrow County colleges have been additionally conscious of the investigation or have been “monitoring” when the teenager enrolled there final month.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith mentioned Thursday that the teenager was new to Barrow County colleges, having enrolled two weeks in the past. Wednesday was his second day at Apalachee Excessive Faculty and his first full day, Smith mentioned.
In an interview with NBC Information on Thursday, Smith mentioned the sheriff’s workplace discovered about final 12 months’s investigation on Wednesday, about two hours after the taking pictures.
Smith mentioned he was assured that the earlier suggestions had been investigated correctly by the FBI and native legislation enforcement.
“Native authorities went to the home, interviewed him, interviewed his father, they did a report, they did what they have been purported to do, and located that there was no correct trigger” to arrest him, Smith mentioned. “Whatever the state of affairs, all of us have civil rights. He didn’t commit a criminal offense. He made a remark. It was unfounded on the time.”
However Isaiah Hooks, 15, a soccer participant at the highschool mentioned it was tough to swallow information that some authorities have been conscious of and monitoring the teenager.
“It’s even more durable simply to consider, to just accept, that anyone that might have performed this when the FBI knew who he was, that he was able to this. I misplaced my coach and classmates and mates who have been harm proper throughout from the room I used to be in,” Hooks mentioned. “I simply really feel like that individual shouldn’t have been in a position to even be round a college. His menace ought to have been included in his transcript or one thing. This could have been prevented since they knew he might do one thing like this.”