Charges against teen Georgia school shooting suspect’s father push the boundaries of who’s responsible for a mass gun attack

(CNN) — The father of the 14-year-old Apalachee High School shooting suspect faces two counts of second-degree murder in connection with this week’s Georgia attack that left four dead – charges that push the legal limits of parental responsibility for a child’s alleged gun crime.

The case against Colin Gray, 54, marks just the second time in America a parent has been charged in connection with a mass shooting by a minor, former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin said. The charges – including four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children, with more possible – are the most severe ever filed against an alleged school shooter’s parent.

Each count against Gray accuses the father of “providing a firearm to Colt Gray with knowledge he was a threat to himself and others,” his Barrow County arrest warrant affidavit shows. Colin Gray has not entered any plea; Colt Gray has not entered pleas to four felony murder charges, and more charges against him are expected.

“The key issue in the case against the father here will be: recklessness, foreseeability, how he handled the gun in relation to his son,” Toobin told CNN on Thursday night.

Colin Gray could face up to 180 years in prison if convicted on all counts, state Judge Currie Mingledorff said during a Friday hearing.

Central to the case against Gray will be an interaction the father and his son had with law enforcement more than a year before Wednesday’s mass shooting; the teenager’s access to the weapon used in the attack; and what the father knew about the boy’s mental state, experts told CNN, as a portrait of the teenager’s tumultuous family life emerges.

In May 2023, law enforcement questioned Colt and his father about online threats “to commit a school shooting,” the FBI has said. Colt at the time denied making the threats, and his father told authorities his son did not have unsupervised access to hunting guns in the house.

Just seven months later, the suspect’s father purchased the firearm allegedly used in the mass shooting as a holiday present for his son, two law enforcement sources told CNN. The AR-15-style rifle was bought at a local gun store as a Christmas present, one source said.

The charges against Gray come just five months after the parents of the teenager who killed four students in a 2021 school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, were each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison after their convictions of involuntary manslaughter.

James and Jennifer Crumbley were the first parents to be held criminally responsible for a mass school shooting committed by their child as the nation continues to grapple with the scourge of gunfire on campus and mass shootings in places usually considered safe.

Already, there are striking similarities between the Georgia and Michigan cases: In each shooting, four people were killed and others wounded at school after a teenager’s parents gave them the deadly weapon as a gift.

The case against Gray also echoes the Crumbleys’ in that all involve “a gun being allowed in the hands of a child,” CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson said Thursday.

“What that Michigan case did is that they put the world and the country on notice that as parents, if you are in possession of a firearm, that you are responsible for the actions of your son,” former New York prosecutor and criminal defense attorney Bernarda Villalona told CNN.

“You have to be aware of what is the capability of your son, what they’re going through, what access they have to these firearms that are capable of causing death.”

Despite similarities between the Michigan and Georgia cases, some key differences also are in play. And with the Georgia investigation still in its early stages, experts said it’s too early to tell exactly how a criminal trial of Gray might unfold and compare with the Crumbleys’.

Colin Gray faces more severe charges

Like the Crumbleys, Gray faces four counts of involuntary manslaughter. He’s also charged with second-degree murder – a much more severe offense.

The second-degree murder charges apply to the two 14-year-olds killed Wednesday, Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, but not to the two slain teachers, Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie, the Barrow County district attorney said Friday.

“Second-degree murder is different in Georgia than in other states. It’s a rather new charge, and it is specifically geared towards cruelty to children in the second degree,” prosecutor Brad Smith said.

“If you commit cruelty to children in the second degree that causes death, that is second-degree murder.”

“I’m not trying to send a message,” Smith added of the charges against Gray. “I’m just trying to use the tools in my arsenal to prosecute people for the crimes they commit.”

During the Crumbley trials, prosecutors argued the parents were “grossly negligent” in allowing their teenage son, Ethan Crumbley, to have access to the gun he used and ignoring signs of his spiraling mental health.

Like the Crumbley trials, a trial in Gray’s case likely would probe whether the Georgia shooting was reasonably foreseeable and if the father acted recklessly and with negligence, CNN’s experts said.

And it would be hard to argue Gray was unaware of safety concerns regarding his son, given the questions he faced from law enforcement in May 2023 – over a year before the shooting – said Karen McDonald, who prosecuted Ethan and his parents.

Firearm gift will play major role, experts say

Key to the Georgia case will be how Colt allegedly was given the gun just months after his father was made aware of the alleged online threats, McDonald said.

“It’s a deadly weapon. And it’s a 14-year-old young man. The first question has to be: Where did he get that gun? And the details that are coming out are very concerning,” McDonald said.

The father giving a firearm to his son as a gift violates state law, Villalona said: “In Georgia, it is illegal to provide a minor with a firearm” – though exceptions exist for hunting, at a firing range and at home with adult permission.

“This is going to be a prosecution about gross negligence: the degree to which you put a firearm in the hands of your son and knowing potentially what the dangers are and what your son’s behavior is,” said Jackson, the legal analyst.

Gray’s actions reflect a “complete and utter dereliction of responsibility,” said gun violence prevention group Everytown for Gun Safety’s senior vice president for law and policy, Nick Suplina.

The Crumbley cases showed “parents can – and should – be held responsible when they disregard public safety,” he said. It “should have sent a clear message to people like Mr. Gray, but unfortunately for the victims and their families, he did not heed that message to prevent a tragedy.”

Gray did not ask for bond at a Friday hearing at which he was represented by a public defender. Colt’s attorney at a Friday hearing did not request bond. CNN is working to identify and reach both lawyers.

What dad knew about son will be scrutinized

How much Colin Gray knew about his son’s mental state when he allegedly bought him the firearm will also be examined by prosecutors, experts told CNN.

Authorities searching Colt’s bedroom found documents they believe he wrote referencing past school shootings, including mentions of the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told CNN.

It’s unclear what, if anything, Colt’s father knew about the documents.

In Michigan, the Crumbley trials focused on a pivotal meeting among school employees, Ethan and his parents on the morning of the shooting after the teenager made disturbing writings on a math worksheet. The school recommended the parents immediately take him out of class and get him mental health treatment, but they declined, prosecutors and school officials have said. About two hours after Ethan was sent back to class, he took the gun out of his backpack and opened fire at the school.

It’s too early to tell whether the elder Gray will face the sort of legal scrutiny seen in the Crumbley cases as it remains unclear exactly what the father knew leading up to this week’s shooting, former FBI Director Andrew McCabe told CNN on Thursday night.

“In (the Michigan) case, you had a situation – a very rare situation – where the parents knew two things right before the shooting took place: one, that their son had a weapon they provided to him; and two, that he was experiencing this mental distress in school and having these very violent writings and comments in his notebook,” McCabe said.

In the Georgia case, “we don’t have that same sort of temporal connection that we know of yet between what the father knew in the days and hours leading up to the shooting,” he said.

The case against Gray is “all going to boil down to what was the knowledge that this dad had about his son,” Villalona said, adding she expects an outcome similar to that of the Crumbley cases.

Whether the Georgia suspect’s father is found criminally responsible in the Apalachee High School shooting, parents must do more to keep firearms out of the hands of their kids, said McDonald, the Michigan prosecutor.

“It takes less than 10 seconds to install a cable lock – 10 seconds that would prevent tragedies like this,” she said, “and responsible gun owners know that.”

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CNN’s Holly Yan, Andy Rose, Yahya Abou-Ghazala, Casey Tolan, Scott Glover, Josh Campbell, Curt Devine, Allison Gordon, Isabelle Chapman and Amanda Jackson contributed to this report.