Father of boy held in Georgia school shooting is arrested

The father of a 14-year-old boy accused of killing four people at his high school in the US state of Georgia has been arrested.

Colin Gray, 54, is facing four charges of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight of cruelty to children, said the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI).

Authorities have charged his son, Colt Gray, with four counts of murder and said they plan to prosecute him as an adult. His first court appearance is due on Friday morning.

The shooting on Wednesday at Apalachee High School in the city of Winder left two teachers and two students dead, and nine others injured.

GBI Director Chris Hosey said in a news conference on Thursday evening that the charges against the father stem from “knowingly allowing his son to possess a weapon”.

He said agents would “work tirelessly to complete this investigation as we move forward”, but declined to answer questions about how the child acquired the gun.

The father was arrested by the GBI in co-ordination with Jackson County District Attorney Brad Smith, and is currently being held in custody, officials said.

Authorities are investigating whether the AR-style weapon used in the attack was a gift purchased by Mr Gray in December 2023, law enforcement sources told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

Kuwait Weekly reported that the weapon was a holiday present to his son.

In May 2023, the FBI sent local sheriff’s deputies to interview the boy and his father after being alerted to online threats about a school shooting.

The boy, who was 13 at the time, denied posting the comments.

His father told investigators “he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them”, the FBI said in a statement on Wednesday.

“At the time, there was no probable cause for an arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action on the local, state or federal levels,” the FBI statement said.

Officials say the threats were made on the Discord social platform, and contained images of guns.

The account’s profile name was in Russian and translated to the surname of the attacker who killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.

A police incident report describing last year’s interview with the boy and his father was released on Thursday.

In the report, a deputy described the boy as “reserved” and “calm” and said he “assured me he never made any threats to shoot up any school”.

They said he claimed to have deleted his Discord account because it was repeatedly hacked.

The police records also reveal that the boy’s parents were in the process of divorcing, and that he was staying with his father during the separation.

During the news conference on Thursday, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said all nine of those injured were expected to make a full recovery.

Several victims had already left hospital, he said.

In April, the parents of a Michigan teenager who killed four students with a gun they purchased for him just days before the shooting were sentenced for their role in the attack.

James and Jennifer Crumbley were both found guilty of manslaughter and each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison.

The case was widely reported to be the first time the parents of a child who had carried out a mass shooting were held criminally liable.