Law&Crime Sidebar - Accused Georgia School Shooter's Dad Waved Off FBI Over Son's Threat: 'I'm Pissed Off'

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

Colin Gray, 54, faces charges alongside his son Colt, 14, after the teen allegedly used a semi automatic rifle to kill four people at his high school in Winder, Georgia. A tip to the FBI last year led the agency to investigate Gray, but after speaking with the teen and his father, no further action was taken. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber digs deeper into the local law enforcement and FBI response with former FBI and CIA agent Tracy Walder.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/LCSidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger and Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. views shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Everyone in this community is a victim. Every child in that school was a victim. We are learning new information about the far-reaching impacts of a shooting at a high school in Georgia as the community tries to come to grips with what has been revealed so far. A 14-year-old and his father are both in custody facing charges of murder. We're digging into the interviews that the two did a year ago after the FBI got a tip about an alleged threat.

We're going to break this down with former FBI and CIA agent Tracy Walder. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Hey, everybody. Good to be back with all of you. I missed you guys. I was out on vacation, but I missed you guys. But I saw that Sierra Gillespie and Elizabeth Milner did a fantastic job filling in from me. I want to thank them for the great work. But now I'm back. I want to get into it. And while I was away, unfortunately, I saw the news that all of you saw.

That 14-year-old Colt Gray and his father, Colin Gray, are both behind bars right now. One in a juvenile detention center, the other in an adult jail. for a horrific school shooting, a shooting that took place at Appalachie High School on September 4th. Officials in Barrow County, Georgia, say Colt Gray, brought a semi-automatic rifle to the school and opened fire, killing two students, two teachers, nine other people were injured, they're all expected to recover, an absolutely horrific event. The victims were identified as 14-year-old Christian Angulo, 14-year-old Christian Angulo, 14-year-old Mason Schemmerhorn, math teachers Richard Aspenwall and Christina Erme, they were also killed.

According to the Barrow County Sheriff, the shooting lasted only about a minute, starting in a hallway, ended in a classroom before school resource officers confronted the alleged shooter and he surrendered. But the damage, the devastation was already done. Celebration of life was held on Sunday for Aspen Wall, who was known to family and friends as Ricky and to his football players at the high school as co-tebroseph. Coach A, he was a married father of two young children. GoFundMe pages have been set up for the families of each victim, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars as the community grapples with all this and grieves. People across the state showed their support for Appalachia High over the weekend. Students at the University of Georgia who typically paint their bodies in support of the Bulldogs during football games.

Instead, they spelled out, pray for AHS. The Atlanta Falcons wore Appalachie High. t-shirts before their game on Sunday and held a moment of silence. Colin Gray, charged with second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, cruelty to children for allegedly providing his son with the rifle. It's been reported that Gray gave his teenage son this AR-15-style rifle for Christmas. For now, it's not clear how the shooter brought the gun onto the school grounds or what he did with it for the two hours between the start of school and the attack.

Colt Gray faces four charges of felony murder. But the Barrow County District Attorney, Brad Smith, says that more charges are on the way. There will be additional charges on Colt Gray. When he was taken into custody on Wednesday, we did not have the identities or the conditions of the other victims. So we were not able to charge on those offenses. So when the evidence comes in and they've been able chance to heal physically, emotionally, and spiritually, we will get with them, and there will be additional charges that address the other victims in the case. I do not know if there will be charges on Collin Gray. There may be, depending on how the investigation comes forward.

But you can anticipate there will be new charges on Colt Gray because we've never addressed. the other victims in the school. Now, a grand jury has already been impaneled in Barrow County. They're going to meet again on October 17th. Remember, their job is to issue an indictment, or not issue an indictment. District attorney said he believes this is the first time in Georgia that a parent has been charged in connection with a crime like this, allegedly committed by their child. He also explained why Colin Gray, the father, is facing two second-degree murder counts.

Second-degree murder is different in Georgia than other states. It's a rather new charge, and it is specifically geared towards cruelty to children in the second degree. If you commit cruelty to children in the second degree that causes a death, that is second degree murder. And so the two children that were killed would be the second degree murder. It would not apply to the adult disease. By the way, thank you so much for coming to us for our coverage of this shooting. We really appreciate your trust in us. It's not something we take lightly.

And honestly, we're able to continue to do this and cover these stories because of the support that not only we would get from you guys, but also our sponsors. And if I can, I just want to highlight one in particular right now, Morgan and Morgan, look, if you're injured, this firm with over a thousand attorneys, maybe who you want in your corner because they are America's largest injury law firm. And for a reason, they win a lot. You also get a dedicated army that includes a legal team, case investigators, paralegals, customer case specialists. There's no upfront fee. You only pay them if you win. And the whole process can be done straight from your smartphone. So if you're injured, you can easily start a claim at for the people.com slash LC sidebar.

Now the question is, who's to blame, right? As people in the community mourn, they're also looking at who's to blame for this shooting. Of course, cold gray, accused of actually firing the shots. could have been done before September 4th to potentially stop him from before things went too far as the allegations are laid out. Well, to talk about that, I want to bring in former FBI and CIA agent and friend of the show, Tracy Walder. Tracy's so good to see you. Thank you so much for taking the time. Such a tragic event. It's becoming, unfortunately, all too common in this country. How often is the FBI dealing with these kinds of tips like that, right? Someone threatening violence against

against the others or threatening a school shooting on maybe a social media platform or online platform, like a discord. Well, thank you so much for having me, Jesse. The FBI actually regularly monitors discord just because there is so much that goes on on that platform. You know, the FBI, most of these threats actually do not originate with the FBI.

They originate with local law enforcement, quite frankly, typically because that's who people reach out to first. This one came into their national threat operations center, And it's like a clearinghouse, I guess, if you will, for threats. And the FBI appropriately kicked it down to the county sheriff. And then they are the ones who investigated it. So the FBI, I mean, they receive thousands and thousands and thousands of threats and tips to the National Threat Operation Center. But I wouldn't say it's common to receive one regarding a school shooting because most of those go to local law enforcement.

And let me, let me amplify this a little bit. So the FBI was alerted in 2023 last year. It's one of the biggest bombshells revealed so far in this investigation that the FBI actually gets this tip and they pass it down to law enforcement. And it's that Colt Gray and his father, Colin Gray, May 2023, according to the FBI's Atlanta Field Office, that Discord users reported someone was threatening to shoot up a school and that had posted photos of guns on the platform. And again, Discord is this social media app typically used by video gamers. and the FBI had reportedly connected the Discord user making the comments to an email address used by Colt Gray. So agents pass the information along to the Jackson County Sheriff's Office, which sent deputies out to talk to the Grays at their home where they lived before moving to Barrow.

And transcripts and audio recordings of those interviews, they're starting to come out from that interview long crime. We've requested those. We're going to be doing a deep dive on sidebar once we have our hands on them. but we want to kind of give everybody an overview of what was said. So Colin Gray confirmed to the deputy that he does have weapons in the house and said that Colt had access to them. But he also said, quote, I mean, there's nothing loaded, but they are. We do a lot of shooting. We do a lot of deer hunting.

We shot his first deer this year. And Gray said that he was shocked and, quote, pissed off to hear that his son might be the one making threats against a school. So Gray insisted that Colt understood that this was. was a serious accusation, that Colt himself swore that he would never post anything like that even as a joke. And at one point, the investigator says, God forbid something happens and I didn't do my job. I feel pretty bad about that, which is chilling words, knowing that Gray is now accused of killing two teachers and two schoolmates.

And according to the FBI, the account making the threats was in Russian, but it spelled out Lanzah, referring to Adam Lanzah, who was the shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary. school in Connecticut. And when police search the gray home, they also find these writings from Colt that allegedly show he was interested in Nicholas Cruz, the shooter, at Marjorie Ston Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. So when you hear this, Tracy, and you hear how much information was there, and as you said, it was the FBI work in conjunction with local law enforcement, I'm surprised that nothing more was done. I'm going to be very blunt, I guess, about this.

Usually I'm not that blunt on your show. I think actually plenty was done. I think law enforcement did exactly what they were supposed to have done. They followed up on that tip immediately, as you mentioned, per those transcripts. I think these parents are 100% to blame for what this child did. And I have said that on air throughout this. I have seen many times at the FBI when I braided homes and seen things that were allowed to be in the possession of 18 and 19-year-olds from their parents. I have seen parents enabling or ignoring this behavior,

which is ultimately what I think his father did. And so I really do put the blame solely at this point at his father because he was residing with him. So I know that's very harsh and we're looking sort of for places to place blame. But the FBI passed this tip down. Law enforcement followed up on it. There isn't much they can do outside of that because Georgia also doesn't have safe storage laws, meaning that the father can keep those weapons out if he so desires to do so. Look, he's being charged for it. So, I mean, you talk about responsibility, but there was nothing more for law enforcement to arrest anybody at that point, right?

They couldn't corroborate the threats. Unfortunately not. And that's really difficult. And typically at the FBI, when I looked at things like human trafficking or child pornography cases, the problem is you sometimes cannot put that person physically behind the computer actually making those threats. They can trace to his email, but he can say that someone else was on his computer or someone else had access to his email. And then that is what becomes really, really difficult. But again, it's helpful evidence to prosecute the father because that would

show he had knowledge about the dangers of his son. And then he probably shouldn't have provided him with the weapon. And whether or not that's manslaughter, whether or not that's murder, that'll be up for a jury to decide. By the way, we actually spoke with Judge Elizabeth Sherrill. She was the Florida judge who presided over the penalty phase over Nicholas Cruz when he pleaded guilty. So we got her reaction to all this as well. You can check it out on our YouTube page. But Tracy, I want to talk to you about something else. So we told everybody last week that this 14-year-old had been dealing with what seems to be a tumultuous home life.

His mother and father, they went through a nasty divorce after the family was evicted from their home. Colt's mother, Marcy Gray, and her family have accused Colin Gray of domestic abuse. She herself has a long criminal history that involves drugs and fraud. New York Post spoke with Colt's grandfather Charles Polmos at his home in Fitzgerald, Georgia. This is where Macy had been living since the split. And he said, quote, Colt has to pay for what he did, but I'm telling you, he was driven. No question in my mind. Colt is like a lot of young kids these days with the tablets and some of the garbage they pull up the blood and all the fighting.

If you don't think that has an impact on young kids, you're missing the boat. and that was also part of Colt's problem. It's part of it. And living with a dysfunctional dad who was a screamer and a holler, no question about it. Prior to going through this, he was a good kid. I will preach that forever. And he said that the hopes that Colin Gray gets the death penalty in this as well.

Your thoughts on that? That's really harsh. I think a lot of times we generalize people and their behavior. I'm probably going to get in trouble for saying this, but I grew up with a yellower and a screamer. I did not turn into a school shooter. There's lots of children that have unfettered access to the internet that don't do these things.

But I do think, as myself, a parent and society as a whole, allowing children unfettered, not unmonitored, but unfettered access to things like YouTube, video games, those kinds of things, does expose them to things that they're probably not mentally capable of handling at that stage in their life. There is also reporting. that the alleged school shooter's mother, again, Marcy Gray, tried to warn the school that something

might happen. So a woman named Annie Brown spoke with the Washington Post, and she says that Marcy texted her saying she spoke to a school counselor at the high school and warned them that there could be an extreme emergency if someone didn't check on Colt right away. And records released to the newspaper show that Marcy did call the school at 9.50 a.m. Colt reportedly started shooting just a half hour later or allegedly started shooting just a half hour later. And there are these text messages that show that Marcy got a text from her son on September 4th saying he was sorry. And so she knew something was wrong, reportedly started driving towards Winder, which is about three hours away from where she was living. But she apparently found out the shooting had happened while she was on the way.

And this is again, is very eerily reminiscent of the Crumblies. Ethan Crumley, the teen who pleaded guilty in the Oxford Michigan School shooting, sent a text to his mom. before he carried out the attack saying, I love you. His mother responded, I love you too. Are you okay? Ethan don't do it. And remember, both the parents in that case, Jennifer and James Crumbly, they were found guilty of manslaughter and they were sentenced to prison.

Marcy's family has said that Colt was supposed to start therapy soon because he allegedly had been dealing with suicidal and homicidal thoughts. And Marcy told the Washington Post in a text message, I am so, so sorry, I cannot fathom the pain and suffering they're going through right now. When you look at that from an investigative point of view, what's your take? Well, I guess, you know, aside from being FBI and CIA, also was a high school teacher as well. So I'm familiar with the process in terms of reporting these things.

And, you know, she did notify the school. I'm not sure if that went to a counselor or not. It's still unclear who that went to. The school actually did go to the math class to pull the child. They just pulled the wrong child with the same last name. And so they pulled that person. They pulled that person's backpack because Mr. Gray or the child was out in. the restroom at the time and that's why they pulled that one child so it actually sounds like the

school did what they were supposed to do but my question my bigger question actually is how the weapon got into the school i don't know if the school has metal detectors or those kinds of things it's a pretty technologically savvy school based on what they had in terms of lockdown procedures but that hasn't been confirmed so i would be very interested to know how that got into school and what their procedures are regarding weapons on campus and frisking students for weapons on campus. So it does look like they tried. I believe it was at 10.13.

They walked into that math classroom to pull the student, which would have been prior to the shooting itself, but they pulled the wrong one. And then before I let you go, Tracy, I wanted to ask you about this. It's being reported in the days since Colcray allegedly admitted to authorities that he was the one who opened fire in the school. classrooms that law enforcement all over Georgia has been dealing with more threats of violence. The FBI and the GBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, they put on a joint statement on Friday saying that schools and police, they often see an uptick in the amount of suspicious

activity reported after an incident like this. And while most of the viral social media posts have been deemed not really credible, the agency's promised that anyone caught making threats will be found and will be prosecuted. And that does seem to be the case because at least a dozen Georgia teens and one adult have been detained or arrested in connection with hoax threats. So Tracy, I have to ask you, what is going on here? Why do we see that? Unfortunately, that's what we see typically. Even in the wake of, say, 9-11, for example, we saw a rise in terrorist chatter activity, those kinds of things.

Whether they panned out or not, obviously we know they didn't in the wake of that. But that is something that we see in the wake of any attack, whether it's abroad, whether it's here, whether it's a school shooting, whether it's not. We do see that uptick in chatter, either because people want to get noticed or because people feel inspired by and empowered by. And I do appreciate that GBI is really going after them. Tracy Walder, thank you so much for coming on. I wish, again, I always say it, I wish we were talking under better circumstances. but another school shooting, more questions, more prosecutions, more heartache, more pain,

and this investigation continues, hopefully we'll get more answers. But thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. All right, everybody, that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.

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