School shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia

[Dmmetler]

7 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

The 2 largest, non-chain gas stations and mini-marts in my area are massive gun and ammo stores with all kinds of signs and shirts advising people to stock up against the big bad government, signs that laugh about shooting people, trespassers will be shot, look funny at my truck and you will get shot, bumper stickers threatening to shoot up the world, every kind of low class, killing and gun humor you can imagine. They are swarmed with people all the time. We do everything we can to avoid driving by or going in. I was terrified the night mother in law needed aspirin and one of these stupid joints was the only place open. It feels like walking into a war zone, and it is not an exaggeration to say most folks in there as well as employees are packing. Many will brag that the safety is off. All you can hope is they shoot themselves in the foot trying to draw it. You keep your head down, pay, don't let anyone see how much money you have on you, don't make eye contact, don't speak except hi and thanks, and make a mad dash to your car, get the hell out of there. The sheer amount of hard liquor and beer going out WITH the ammo and guns is staggering. Alcohol and guns, what could go wrong? 😠

Until kids a prep schools start getting mowed down, nothing is going to change. Too many people think this kind of culture is delightful! They are bullies, and like having the particular interpretation of the constitution that backs up their bullying ways in the driver's seat. They enjoy scaring the freak out of people. They don't care who dies until it is one of their own loved ones, and frankly, even that doesn't always change them. My nephew drunk cleaned his hand gun, the bullet narrowly missing his child and pregnant wife...about an inch and fried the wiring inside the wall. He still has not given up his guns, and has purchased more. He didn't actually harm her, so a near miss is fine legally. Not that she would have ever pressed charges because she is just as stupid as he is. My mother called CPS. Nothing.

 

Covenant was a Christian prep school. It did nothing. 

[lauraw4321]

6 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

Covenant was a Christian prep school. It did nothing. 

Yes. After Sandy Hook, I don’t think it matters what kind of kids are shot. We need massive, sustained, grassroots political efforts. It’s not impossible but it’s going to be damn hard. 

[fairfarmhand]

10 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

Covenant was a Christian prep school. It did nothing. 

Nashville person here. I was thinking it, but didn't want to say it.

[Heartstrings]

17 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

Covenant was a Christian prep school. It did nothing. 

It wasn’t a ritzy one though.  The schools were celebrities and politicians and dignitaries send their kids are safe.  They have security, they’ll bounce kids who have problems.

[Sneezyone]

1 hour ago, Murphy101 said:

 

But the point of an investigation is to come to a resulting conclusion. Not to just keep treating someone like a criminal for the rest of their lives.  I think if they confirm he made the threat he should suffer the legal punishment for that. But the legal punishment is conviction.  If he wasn’t convicted of anything then they lose the basis to demand punishment. If he served his conviction then they don’t get to keep punishing him further after that.

Im not looking for a fight here.  I’m looking at how the logic plays out within our current legal framework.  And legally there’s a lot that doesn’t work the way people think it does or think it should.  I’m looking at what is going on inside these schools that makes this kid not be on the radar.  To me that says nothing good about how awful the school environment is and absolutely no one wants to hear that the place they are legally and financially forced to send their kids is that bad.  

 

Students do not possess the same rights as free adults. They’re more like prisoners than you or I.

[Sneezyone]

4 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Students do not possess the same rights as free adults. They’re more like prisoners than you or I.

Just goes to show how deeply ingrained the ‘look the other way’ those has become where threats and harm to others exist.

[wathe]

3 hours ago, Murphy101 said:

I don’t think I am being understood. Everything takes TIME. Time that LEO might not have.

No matter how creditable they think the threat they have to get the tip, make calls and do paperwork to follow the tip info. What video game? Can they create an acct and see the threat there or do they have to contact the game and ask them to pretty please share account info or get a warrant to demand the info? Got the info and now how to look into who that account holder is. Where are they and what we do we know about them. Contact the school and tell them this may be creditable and then the person at the school has to follow their protocols. 

It all takes time to follow the law.  Despite the digital era, it still takes time.

I think everyone is picturing some tv drama setting where there’s dozens of people in swat uniforms moving about like well synchronized bots to get everything done almost instantly or within minutes and that’s just not reality. 
 

As to whether while following the law they worked as swiftly as they could bc they thought it was creditable or not - I don’t know yet.  I can easily believe they didn’t. But we don’t know yet. Bc again. It takes time to gather evidence.

I think I understand what you mean.

Hindsight is always 20/20.  Real-time is usually blurry.

I have experience with having to make time-sensitive, high-stakes decisions with limited information, while working in an overwhelmed system.

I'm also in an environment where individuals take the blame for what are really systems failures.   Most of my errors are forced-errors, errors that are inevitable due to system pressures.  But patients don't sue health care systems, they sue individual HCP.

We have no idea what the denominator is here.  How many school shootings are prevented with by good threat assessment management?  I have no idea.  I'd bet a lot.

I found this document "Threat Assessment in Schools: A Guide to Managing Threatening Situation and to Creating Safe School Climates" published by the US Secret Service and US Department of Education.  Bottom line:  it's complex.  "The central question of a threat assessment is whether a student poses a threat, not whether the student made a threat."  And it's not always easy to tell the difference.  The assessment process is complicated.   Perfect outcomes, every time are probably not possible.   Overwhelmed systems will increase errors. 

The obvious solution is to reduce the pre-test probability (of a student posing a threat) by getting rid of the guns.

 

[Drama Llama]

32 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

It wasn’t a ritzy one though.  The schools were celebrities and politicians and dignitaries send their kids are safe.  They have security, they’ll bounce kids who have problems.

The Edmund Burke shooting in 2022, with 4 injured, was at a school with a $48K tuition.  

[Heartstrings]

1 minute ago, Drama Llama said:

The Edmund Burke shooting in 2022, with 4 injured, was at a school with a $48K tuition.  

How sad is it that I honestly have no memory of that one. Probably because there were only injuries, that usually doesn’t break through on the news.  

[Heartstrings]

I have looked and so far I’ve not found any information on what the school did in response to the threat call. All of the media starts with saying there was a call, then it’s 9:45 and the shooter is slipping out of class.  Nothing at all about what the school did leading up to that or how the shooter got his gun into school.  

Edited September 5 by Heartstrings

[Corraleno]

From NPR:

When the sheriff's office interviewed Colt Gray and his father as part of the investigation about online threats, “The father stated he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them."

So the father lied about the kid not having access to the guns, and he either lied that he only owned "hunting guns" when he actually had an assault rifle at the time of the interview or he bought the assault rifle after being told that his kid had threatened to shoot up a school. 

Also, "The FBI said the sheriff’s office alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the subject..."

Which clearly does not seem to have happened, even after a direct threat was called in.

[catz]

1 hour ago, lauraw4321 said:

Yes. After Sandy Hook, I don’t think it matters what kind of kids are shot. We need massive, sustained, grassroots political efforts. It’s not impossible but it’s going to be damn hard. 

Totally agree.  The average household income in Newton, CT (where Sandy Hook is) is around 150K.  That is a well resourced community with educated parents.  I'm not particularly convinced either.

[Corraleno]

9 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

I have looked and so far I’ve not found any information on what the school did in response to the threat call. All of the media starts with saying there was a call, then it’s 9:45 and the shooter is slipping out of class.  Nothing at all about what the school did leading up to that or how the shooter got his gun into school.  

I'd also like to know how a 14 year old was able to just get up and walk out in the middle of math class (a student who had been sitting next to him said he did not take a bathroom pass, he just left) and he was missing from class for up to half an hour yet the teacher did nothing and no one went looking for him.

Kid with a known history of making threats to shoot up a school goes missing from class on a day when the school was warned there would be a mass shooting, and no one checks his bag or even goes looking for him.

Edited September 5 by Corraleno

[Heartstrings]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/09/05/suspected-shooter-georgia-school-shooting-apalachee-high/

His aunt told Wa Po that he had mental health issues and the family had previously dealt with CPS.  
 

“

He “was begging for help from everybody around him,” Annie Brown, the aunt, told The Washington Post. “The adults around him failed him.”

 

Brown, who lives in Central Florida, declined to elaborate on the teen’s mental health challenges but said she tried from afar to get him help. She said his struggles were exacerbated by a difficult home life. He and his family had “previous contacts” with the local child services department, Chris Hosey, the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said at a news conference Wednesday night.

 

”

[Heartstrings]

6 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Kid with a known history of making threats to shoot up a school goes missing from class on a day when the school was warned there would be a mass shooting, and no one checks his bag or even goes looking for him.

I don’t know that the teachers had any idea about his previous threats or the call that morning.  Which is informative they really should have! 
 

That teacher had his door locked and it literally saved that class.  The shooter couldn’t get in so he opened fire in the hallway, or into the class next door depending on the source.  

[kbutton]

22 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

From NPR:

When the sheriff's office interviewed Colt Gray and his father as part of the investigation about online threats, “The father stated he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them."

So the father lied about the kid not having access to the guns, and he either lied that he only owned "hunting guns" when he actually had an assault rifle at the time of the interview or he bought the assault rifle after being told that his kid had threatened to shoot up a school. 

People hunt with AR 15 rifles. If the police want to know if he has an AR, they should ask that, frankly. They should be asking the question in enough different ways that someone can’t easily lie by exploiting a technicality. It’s their job. 

Very few people have unsupervised access to my home, but I could be a victim of a break in at any time from someone who is not one of the people to whom I grant unsupervised access.

This is not intended as an apologetic for the dad, but I wish people were more realistic about a motivated person getting around safeguards and that people will answer the same question different ways, and it isn’t always disingenuous.

I think lies are probable in this situation, but this is not a slam dunk statement.

I feel like people want to think their kid could never do XYZ (+/- safeguards), but there are no guarantees. (And no, I don’t think that negates safeguards.)

[Corraleno]

17 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/09/05/suspected-shooter-georgia-school-shooting-apalachee-high/

His aunt told Wa Po that he had mental health issues and the family had previously dealt with CPS.  He “was begging for help from everybody around him,” Annie Brown, the aunt, told The Washington Post. “The adults around him failed him.”

 

Brown, who lives in Central Florida, declined to elaborate on the teen’s mental health challenges but said she tried from afar to get him help. She said his struggles were exacerbated by a difficult home life. He and his family had “previous contacts” with the local child services department, Chris Hosey, the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said at a news conference Wednesday night.

This is the Ethan Crumbley case all over again: mentally ill kid with shit parents and easy access to guns makes credible threats, gets zero help, and everyone including the school just ignores the red flags waving right in front of their faces. And then they express shock over the shootings, like how could anyone possibly have known that mentally ill kids with guns might actually do what they'd literally been threatening to do.

[Faith-manor]

18 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/09/05/suspected-shooter-georgia-school-shooting-apalachee-high/

His aunt told Wa Po that he had mental health issues and the family had previously dealt with CPS.  
 

“

He “was begging for help from everybody around him,” Annie Brown, the aunt, told The Washington Post. “The adults around him failed him.”

 

Brown, who lives in Central Florida, declined to elaborate on the teen’s mental health challenges but said she tried from afar to get him help. She said his struggles were exacerbated by a difficult home life. He and his family had “previous contacts” with the local child services department, Chris Hosey, the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said at a news conference Wednesday night.

 

”

Similar to Ethan Crumbley, only Ethan begged for help, and his parents laughed it off, and told the school what to go do with itself. 

I will say this. When a boy from our local high school made a Facebook threat "dodge the bullets", our D.A. and sheriff department took is darn seriously. In the end, it was stupid stupid talk, but the boy was charged, sent to an alternative school, deputies went to his parents' home and seized all the weapons and ammo, and the D.A. made a deal that if he kept his nose clean until he graduated high school and turned 18, and did community service plus went to therapy with the therapist submitting regular reports, he could get it expunged. I don't see why this isn't done far more often. I think all the time about the students of Oxford Schools, and how maybe if there had been therapy and court supervision of the family, all the weapons seized when he started exhibiting red flag behavior at school, these kids would be alive, their classmates moving forward without PTSD.

We can't have nice things for the peasants. Any kind of attempt to stop this madness is going to cost money. More LEOs with very specific training and no mental issues of their own, more social workers, more psychiatrists, more therapists, more supervision, more money for the DA office, more money for the Public Defender's office, more investment in children not as drones for bubble tests, but actual developmental learning, more intervention, and get the damn guns off the damn streets which means buy back programs, red flag laws, Leos and judges willing to enforce the red flag laws, and stronger communities. I really do not see ANY of it happening. Society had accepted this as the new normal, and don't care if kids get sacrificed.

And frankly, the "prep" school examples do not hold up. Expensive does not mean elite and populated by the high powered amongst us. Until politicians, celebrities, and the uber wealthy lose their kids in mass shootings, the powerful people won't give a rat's rear.

[HomeAgain]

54 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

I'd also like to know how a 14 year old was able to just get up and walk out in the middle of math class (a student who had been sitting next to him said he did not take a bathroom pass, he just left) and he was missing from class for up to half an hour yet the teacher did nothing and no one went looking for him.

Kid with a known history of making threats to shoot up a school goes missing from class on a day when the school was warned there would be a mass shooting, and no one checks his bag or even goes looking for him.

So it's the beginning of the school year.  The teacher doesn't have all the information about their students unless they are warned by another teacher or has read each child's file.  My 14yo goes to a small school and his teachers still see 90 students each day.  He has a repeat math teacher this year because she moved to his grade level when staff was let go due to shrinking enrollment.  She remembered the name, but didn't recognize the kid.  He went from 5'3" and super quiet to 5'10" and chatty.

If he left class, there is little she can do while concentrating on her other students.  This isn't Heartbreak High.  The teachers are not overly involved their students lives.  There are three options:

1. assume it's an emergency bathroom run.  They'll discuss procedure when he gets back to the classroom.

2. assume he's just taking off to make mischief.  That warrants a call to the resource center when she has time/when the students are working independently.

3. assume there's an IEP that allows him to go to the counselor as needed.  She makes a mental note to check and talk to him privately about it when she sees him.

These kids are 14.  People aren't going to stop working with the other 14yos to go off on a goose chase.  I don't know what you expect a teacher to do in the space of a few minutes of trying to stay organized and keep a new class on task.

[TechWife]

17 hours ago, Murphy101 said:

What do you mean by this?  One presumes that in order to get access to the texts, the person who owns the phone or the adult of that person is sharing that of their own free will and consent.  Are you saying that the media is getting those texts in some other manner?

 

16 hours ago, Kassia said:

@TechWifeexplained in her post that the media is taking advantage of people when they are vulnerable, in shock, and traumatized.  Not really a time when people are capable of making good decisions on what personal information to share with the world.  I think many people regret what they have said or shared with the media right after a tragedy like this.  

@Kassia explained what I mean very well. Thanks @Kassia 😊

[DoraBora]

11 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

They were able to track the threats to this specific kid, hence the sit down with dad.

Sorry, I meant to write that LE questioned the boy based on anonymous tips (not anonymous threats) and didn't have probable cause to arrest him.  I assume that means they didn't see the threats, but only heard about them.

Edited September 5 by DoraBora
typos

[Corraleno]

53 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

So it's the beginning of the school year.  The teacher doesn't have all the information about their students unless they are warned by another teacher or has read each child's file. 

IMO they should have info on a student when that student has made previous threats to shoot up the school and the FBI and Sheriff's office have informed the school to "continue monitoring" him. And IMO all teachers and staff should have been informed immediately that the school had just received a warning that a school shooting was imminent. When there is an active threat like that, no student should be allowed to just walk out of class and wander around unsupervised. Colt Gray should have been sitting the counselor's office while school resource officers searched his backpack and locker, instead of being able to just blithely walk out of class and go fetch an AR-15.

One airline passenger tried to hide a bomb in his shoe and now every single person who flies in the US is treated as a potential terrorist threat and required to remove their shoes before boarding. After a plot to get liquid explosives on a plane was uncovered, no one in the US is allowed to take more than 100ml of shampoo in their carryon, and they have to show their quart-sized bag of toiletries to security officers before they can even go to the gate.

There have been vastly more school shootings than plane bombing, but instead of trying to find and monitor and screen potential shooters, we just traumatize millions of children with active shooter drills, and propose arming teachers so they can live out the Trolley Problem in real time by deciding whether to murder a mentally ill child in order to protect a larger number of kids. 

A student with mental health issues, who lives in a troubled family that owns multiple weapons and has had dealings with CPS, made threats to shoot up a school, was investigated by the FBI, and local law enforcement identified him to the school. The school had the time and resources to put all their students through the trauma of active shooter drills, but couldn't be bothered to keep tabs on the kid who had actually threatened to shoot the place up? Teachers and staff were required to participate in those drills, but didn't have the right to know that one of their students had threatened to do exactly what they were training to defend against?

The fact that the only solution to school shootings that a large % of the US population is willing to accept is teaching students how to hide in closets and jump out windows when someone with an assault rifle shows up, is just absolutely, indefensibly INSANE.

[Catwoman]

2 hours ago, kbutton said:

People hunt with AR 15 rifles. If the police want to know if he has an AR, they should ask that, frankly. They should be asking the question in enough different ways that someone can’t easily lie by exploiting a technicality. It’s their job. 

Very few people have unsupervised access to my home, but I could be a victim of a break in at any time from someone who is not one of the people to whom I grant unsupervised access.

This is not intended as an apologetic for the dad, but I wish people were more realistic about a motivated person getting around safeguards and that people will answer the same question different ways, and it isn’t always disingenuous.

I think lies are probable in this situation, but this is not a slam dunk statement.

I feel like people want to think their kid could never do XYZ (+/- safeguards), but there are no guarantees. (And no, I don’t think that negates safeguards.)

I think the big problem here is that a kid threatened to shoot up his school to the point where the Sheriff and the FBI were involved... yet the parents still had guns in their house.

I hope the parents are prosecuted. They knew their kid had made horrible threats, and yet they not only didn't immediately get rid of their guns, but they left an AR-15 style gun where the kid could get it and take it to school with him.

I am equally disgusted with the school for not taking the threat seriously.

 

Edited September 5 by Catwoman

[Corraleno]

5 minutes ago, DoraBora said:

Sorry, I meant to write that LE questioned the boy based on anonymous tips (not anonymous threats) and didn't have probable cause to arrest him.  I assume that means they didn't see the threats, but only heard about them.

It doesn't mean they didn't see the threats, it just means that they either didn't have sufficient proof that Colt Gray was the one who made them or they didn't feel it was a good use of resources to press formal charges against a 13 year old. But they did take the threat seriously enough to inform the school and recommend "continued monitoring" of the kid.

[DoraBora]

5 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

It doesn't mean they didn't see the threats, it just means that they either didn't have sufficient proof that Colt Gray was the one who made them or they didn't feel it was a good use of resources to press formal charges against a 13 year old. But they did take the threat seriously enough to inform the school and recommend "continued monitoring" of the kid.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fbi-sheriffs-office-were-tipped-off-by-discord-users-in-may-2023-about-apalachee-high-school-shooting-suspect-heres-what-we-know-172418786.html

A bit more detail about the nature of the online threats last year...

“Due to the inconsistent nature of the information received by the FBI, the allegation that Colt or Colin is the user behind the Discord account that made the threat cannot be substantiated,” the report concluded. “This case will be exceptionally cleared.”

“The threats were generic and not a specific location or time,” a spokesperson for the FBI Atlanta division told Yahoo News on Thursday. “At this time, we don’t have further information to share other than what was in our statement on our social media channels.”

Edited September 5 by DoraBora

[Heartstrings]

14 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

IMO they should have info on a student when that student has made previous threats to shoot up the school and the FBI and Sheriff's office have informed the school to "continue monitoring" him. And IMO all teachers and staff should have been informed immediately that the school had just received a warning that a school shooting was imminent. When there is an active threat like that, no student should be allowed to just walk out of class and wander around unsupervised. Colt Gray should have been sitting the counselor's office while school resource officers searched his backpack and locker, instead of being able to just blithely walk out of class and go fetch an AR-15.

One airline passenger tried to hide a bomb in his shoe and now every single person who flies in the US is treated as a potential terrorist threat and required to remove their shoes before boarding. After a plot to get liquid explosives on a plane was uncovered, no one in the US is allowed to take more than 100ml of shampoo in their carryon, and they have to show their quart-sized bag of toiletries to security officers before they can even go to the gate.

There have been vastly more school shootings than plane bombing, but instead of trying to find and monitor and screen potential shooters, we just traumatize millions of children with active shooter drills, and propose arming teachers so they can live out the Trolley Problem in real time by deciding whether to murder a mentally ill child in order to protect a larger number of kids. 

A student with mental health issues, who lives in a troubled family that owns multiple weapons and has had dealings with CPS, made threats to shoot up a school, was investigated by the FBI, and local law enforcement identified him to the school. The school had the time and resources to put all their students through the trauma of active shooter drills, but couldn't be bothered to keep tabs on the kid who had actually threatened to shoot the place up? Teachers and staff were required to participate in those drills, but didn't have the right to know that one of their students had threatened to do exactly what they were training to defend against?

The fact that the only solution to school shootings that a large % of the US population is willing to accept is teaching students how to hide in closets and jump out windows when someone with an assault rifle shows up, is just absolutely, indefensibly INSANE.

I agree 100%.  Like I said earlier, there is NO getting this country to 0 guns.  We CAN still decrease the number of school shootings with a bit of effort, like the common sense things you outlined.  
 

[catz]

The father of the Georgia school shooting suspect has been arrested and is facing several charges, authorities say. Grateful for this.  More charges for negligent gun owners.

Quote

The father of the mass shooting suspect accused of killing four people at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, told investigators this week he had purchased the gun used in the killings as a holiday present for his son in December 2023, according to two law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the investigation.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/05/us/winder-georgia-shooting-apalachee-high-school/index.html

Edited September 5 by catz

[Heartstrings]

3 minutes ago, catz said:

The father of the Georgia school shooting suspect has been arrested and is facing several charges, authorities say. Grateful for this.  More charges for negligent gun owners.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/05/us/winder-georgia-shooting-apalachee-high-school/index.html

He bought him an AR 15 AFTER the FBI interviewed them?   Good Lord. 
 

[Corraleno]

41 minutes ago, DoraBora said:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fbi-sheriffs-office-were-tipped-off-by-discord-users-in-may-2023-about-apalachee-high-school-shooting-suspect-heres-what-we-know-172418786.html

A bit more detail about the nature of the online threats last year...

“Due to the inconsistent nature of the information received by the FBI, the allegation that Colt or Colin is the user behind the Discord account that made the threat cannot be substantiated,” the report concluded. “This case will be exceptionally cleared.”

“The threats were generic and not a specific location or time,” a spokesperson for the FBI Atlanta division told Yahoo News on Thursday. “At this time, we don’t have further information to share other than what was in our statement on our social media channels.”

He specifically threatened to shoot up a school, but didn't name the school or specify the time and day he planned to do it, and he said his account was hacked so they couldn't prove it was him.

According to the FBI, the term "exceptional clearance" in reference to cases involving minors means that the parent or legal guardian was given notice of the offense although no arrest was made. But law enforcement took the threat seriously enough that they "alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the subject." Which clearly did not happen.

 

[Corraleno]

6 minutes ago, catz said:

The father of the Georgia school shooting suspect has been arrested and is facing several charges, authorities say. Grateful for this.  More charges for negligent gun owners.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/05/us/winder-georgia-shooting-apalachee-high-school/index.html

It's crazy how closely this case parallels the Oxford shooting — I wonder if he actually got the idea of asking for gun for Christmas based on Crumbley's case?

[Annie G]

7 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

But law enforcement took the threat seriously enough that they "alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the subject." Which clearly did not happen.

 

It appears that he changed school districts after the police interview.  The interview involved Jackson county officials but Apalachee HS is in Barrow county.  
Should Jackson county schools have told Barrow county about his history? Yeah, they should. But it might have slipped through if he moved and transferred- when the new district requested his records, did it include the information about the police interview? Who knows. 
I wish Dawn could jump on - she’s a school counselor, right? She might have some insight on whether that kind of info would be included in a student’s official record. 
 

 

Edited September 6 by Annie G

[73349]

An article I read said the kid was anxious yesterday and wound up going to the guidance counselor; if I were his teacher, I would have supposed he was going there again. And it's probable that his teachers this year had no idea about the previous threats on Discord and the FBI visit.

The father buying another gun--the specific kind that is used so often in these attacks!--after the law enforcement inquiry is maddening.

[Sneezyone]

3 hours ago, kbutton said:

People hunt with AR 15 rifles. If the police want to know if he has an AR, they should ask that, frankly. They should be asking the question in enough different ways that someone can’t easily lie by exploiting a technicality. It’s their job. 

Very few people have unsupervised access to my home, but I could be a victim of a break in at any time from someone who is not one of the people to whom I grant unsupervised access.

This is not intended as an apologetic for the dad, but I wish people were more realistic about a motivated person getting around safeguards and that people will answer the same question different ways, and it isn’t always disingenuous.

I think lies are probable in this situation, but this is not a slam dunk statement.

I feel like people want to think their kid could never do XYZ (+/- safeguards), but there are no guarantees. (And no, I don’t think that negates safeguards.)

Guns should not be unsecured. If you choose to do that, so be it. There ought to be consequences for ALL owners of firearms who leave them unsecured and find them used in the commission of a crime.

[Corraleno]

Details of the threats posted on Discord:

"A Discord account that the FBI had linked to Colt Gray last year referenced plans for a future mass shooting and shared screenshots of firearms, according to documents obtained by CNN.

“im committing a mass shooting and im waiting a good 2-3 years,” stated the account user, according to screenshots included in an FBI incident report from May 2023 obtained by CNN. “I cant kill myself yet, cause I’m not contributing anything to culture I need to go out knowing I did.”

The account referenced Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter, and in separate posts shared a desire to target an elementary school and expressed frustration with the acceptance of transgender people.

Above a photograph of two firearms, the account posted, “I’m ready.” "

 

[catz]

Umm maybe the FBI could have confiscated phones/tablets/laptops, etc via search warrant to definitely made an ID on this kid.  Since they found him, they must have known he made those online threats.  To drop it completely and leave it as a foot note on a school record - this kid may have said something threatening, but who knows good luck with that?  They took a teen at his word ("uh my discord was hacked")?  Teens lie every day.  

That could have led to meaningful interventions with the weapons in the home.  

I am always empathetic to teachers in these situations at least until more info comes out.  They are asked to be 20 things to 25 different people and that group changes every hour.  But I've led and taught tweens and teens in group settings.

Edited September 6 by catz

[Corraleno]

3 hours ago, Annie G said:

It appears that he changed school districts after the police interview.  The interview involved Jackson county officials but Apalachee HS is in Barrow county.  
Should Jackson county schools have told Barrow county about his history? Yeah, they should. But it might have slipped through if he moved and transferred- when the new district requested his records, did it include the information about the police interview? Who knows. 

From CNN: "Gray was only enrolled in the Jackson County school district between February and August 2022, said Edward Hooper, the spokesperson for the district." The threats and investigation were in May 2023. During the FBI interview, "The suspect’s father said that Colt... had “had some problems” at a middle school in Jackson County but had since moved to another school and “it has gotten a lot better,” one of the investigators wrote."

 

Edited September 6 by Corraleno

[Annie G]

31 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

He was not enrolled in Jackson County schools at the time of the interview. A spokesman for the Jackson County school district said Colt Gray was only enrolled in their district from February to August of 2022, and the threats and investigation were in May 2023. During the FBI interview, "The suspect’s father said that Colt... had “had some problems” at a middle school in Jackson County but had since moved to another school and “it has gotten a lot better,” one of the investigators wrote."

 

I must have read inaccurate info then. I read he’d been at West Jackson Middle but transferred to Jefferson Middle.  Both are in Jackson county.  I think there was a lot of truancy in this kid’s middle school history. 

[Ting Tang]

Haven't read the comments....

I did read that he had been questioned for prior threats and that there was a threat that day.

I'm not going to be politically correct here, but I think at some point we need to build more prisons and lock people away for good.  

Build more prisons.  

No more coddling the people with issues who make threats like these.  Lots of people have issues but don't threaten to kill people.

 

ETA - we had a local kid who made all kinds of threats.  Ended up being his dad to death with a baseball bat this summer.  

Edited September 6 by Ting Tang

[Corraleno]

5 minutes ago, Annie G said:

I must have read inaccurate info then. I read he’d been at West Jackson Middle but transferred to Jefferson Middle.  Both are in Jackson county.  I think there was a lot of truancy in this kid’s middle school history. 

I think you are likely right about the truancy, it seems like this family bounced around quite a bit, with several evictions and lawsuits for nonpayment of rent. The mother said she left with all the kids in December 2022, but then by May 2023 Colt was back with the dad while the mother was in another part of the state with the two younger kids, and then she lost custody due to drug use so all the kids were back with dad, the parents were calling the cops on each other, and it just seems like a really nasty, unstable situation for everyone.

[CTVKath]

The gun was a Christmas gift? This is so horrible it's maddening! I'm glad they arrested the father. Charged him with involuntary manslaughter and second degree murder.

[KSera]

9 hours ago, CTVKath said:

CNN is reporting that the teachers got new ID cards a week ago that had buttons to summon police in this kind of situation. I'm glad they had that and I hope the rest of our counties here will get the same. It's called Centegix.

This is good technology, but I don’t see how it helps much. By the time police arrive, kids are already dead 😞. Even with resource officers in the building, unless they are in exactly the right place at the terrible time, kids still die before they can arrive. 

[prairiewindmomma]

I would love to see:

1. Sales only to those 18+, only through registered dealers where the sale involves Builtin biometric trigger locks installed at point of sale by the dealer keyed to buyer only (ie no benefit to steal a gun, no gifting a gun to a minor)

2. Assault rifle ban

3. Jail time for parents whose minor children shoot a gun—including toddlers

4. can only carry with a permit, and that permit requires a safe handling course, shooting range proficiency test, and fingerprinted background check—redone every 5 years

 

 

[Murphy101]

7 hours ago, Dmmetler said:

I can speak for the schools I taught at. Lockers are school property and can be searched at any time. Many schools X-ray bags or have students talk through metal detectors or both and do hand checks of any possible weapons, and even at the elementary level if a child has brought weapons or made credible threats, daily bag checks are often part of a school reentry plan. 

 

And no, conviction is NOT required for schools to mandate such a plan. Typically, it's a choice between that or being placed on homebound or sent to an alternative school (which WILL have metal detectors and bag checks). 

 

 

I agree. 
 

but my questions was when did someone know this information AND info on this student? What did they do with that information? Idk. Does anyone know yet?

[Murphy101]

7 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

It’s in most public school handbooks that your locker and bag are subject to random search.  Decide today is the perfect day to bring in the drug dog and do a sweep.

sure. But again that takes time. I don’t know anywhere that this is a 5 minute thing to make happen. 

7 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

I doubt most schools have so many kids that have been interviewed by the FBI that the school officials can’t put eyes on them when a threat is called in.

This presumes that information is shared and shared immediately with someone who can make that decision. Do we know if that’s the case here yet? Last year was a different principal maybe or what all other reasons. I doubt people are just standing around sharing the kids name and photo on the daily just in case a year later. 

7 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

Seriously?  Why should the school resource officers have been at the school after a threatened shooting?

No. Why were they not there. Sigh. Why they weren’t there matters. Were they at another school for some reason? Chatting at Starbucks? Or what?

7 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

He wasn’t cleared by the investigation, they just didn’t think there was enough evidence to pursue it

and to be fair he didn’t do anything for a year.  This wasn’t a week ago. It was a year.  Has anything happened that hit their radar before this since then. Idk but I think it’d be good to know. 

7 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

seriously, DHS does more for less ALL the time.  If I leave my kid to read a book in the car while I go into WalMart, I can be required to jump through all kinds of hoops in family court, without ever being charged with anything.  Most kids in foster care are removed and the parents aren’t charged with anything. A friend of mine had to sign a safety plan with DHS because a neighbor kid broke their wrist jumping off of her porch.  She wasn’t charged with anything.  How about the cops pass it to DHS and the parents have to sign a safety plan about gun storage and counseling?  

And many people do indeed argue that DHS/family court shouldn’t legally be allowed to function that way because it deprives people of rights they would have in any other situation.

Saying these other things that shouldn’t happen legally happen so let’s do more things in this other area that ignore rights people should otherwise have doesn’t make either a good thing.

And that’s not even getting into there isn’t enough DHS workers for the case loads they already have so again - it would still take time and manpower when both are often in short supply. 

Really I keep coming back to anything short of gun/ammo regulation is not worth discussing when it comes to the issue of mass shootings anywhere.

Doesn’t mean I don’t think everything could have done better in this situation.

It means that there’s nothing anyone could have done that would have been as preventatively effective as gun and ammo regulation that might have kept it out of his hands to begin with. 

[Murphy101]

23 minutes ago, KSera said:

This is good technology, but I don’t see how it helps much. By the time police arrive, kids are already dead 😞. Even with resource officers in the building, unless they are in exactly the right place at the terrible time, kids still die before they can arrive. 

Reminds me of the sage quip that when someone has seconds to live the police are just minutes away. 

[Frances]

59 minutes ago, Ting Tang said:

Haven't read the comments....

I did read that he had been questioned for prior threats and that there was a threat that day.

I'm not going to be politically correct here, but I think at some point we need to build more prisons and lock people away for good.  

Build more prisons.  

No more coddling the people with issues who make threats like these.  Lots of people have issues but don't threaten to kill people.

 

ETA - we had a local kid who made all kinds of threats.  Ended up being his dad to death with a baseball bat this summer.  

He’s 14, had mental health issues, and a bad home life. I don’t think I would be on board with locking people like this away for life simply because they make threats. We need to provide earlier, better, and more help to young people like him. A friend of mine is a national expert on violence prevention in schools and his solutions most definitely do not include building more prisons and filling them up. 

How is that other countries who imprison a substantially lower percentage of their population don’t have more mass shootings than us? No country even comes close to us. Instead of putting all of the blame on a 14 year old who seems to have been born with the deck stacked against him, maybe we need to look at our society and share some of that blame. Maybe then we can find real solutions.

[Ting Tang]

1 minute ago, Frances said:

He’s 14, had mental health issues, and a bad home life. I don’t think I would be on board with locking people like this away for life simply because they make threats. We need to provide earlier, better, and more help to young people like him. A friend of mine is a national expert on violence prevention in schools and his solutions most definitely do not include building more prisons and filling them up. 

How is that other countries who imprison a substantially lower percentage of their population don’t have more mass shootings than us? No country even comes close to us. Instead of putting all of the blame on a 14 year old who seems to have been born with the deck stacked against him, maybe we need to look at our society and share some of that blame. Maybe then we can find real solutions.

I am sorry. I’m feeling emotional.   I personally don’t feel violent people belong in society once proven evil.   Too many are released from prison, too.  Why? They’re overcrowded.    We definitely don’t value each other’s lives here in America. Evident in so many ways . 😔    

[KSera]

22 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

It means that there’s nothing anyone could have done that would have been as preventatively effective as gun and ammo regulation that might have kept it out of his hands to begin with. 

Agree 100% with this, we’re just stuck unable to do it because gun lobby money and “but my hobby” 

[Murphy101]

7 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

Students do not possess the same rights as free adults. They’re more like prisoners than you or I.

Which is a whole other discussion on the effect spending most of their formative years being treated like prisoners has on the mental health problems of young people these days. 

6 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

I have looked and so far I’ve not found any information on what the school did in response to the threat call. All of the media starts with saying there was a call, then it’s 9:45 and the shooter is slipping out of class.  Nothing at all about what the school did leading up to that or how the shooter got his gun into school.  

This. Everyone keeps saying “The School” or the LEO like it’s some Borg hive mind. I they aren’t. And seriously communication is hard for humans.

“The School” could have been contacted. How were they contacted? Who? What happened after that? Who knows?🤷‍♀️

 

3 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

I agree 100%.  Like I said earlier, there is NO getting this country to 0 guns.  We CAN still decrease the number of school shootings with a bit of effort, like the common sense things you outlined.  
 

The most common sense thing would be gun/ammo regulation. 

12 minutes ago, Frances said:

He’s 14, had mental health issues, and a bad home life. I don’t think I would be on board with locking people like this away for life simply because they make threats. We need to provide earlier, better, and more help to young people like him. A friend of mine is a national expert on violence prevention in schools and his solutions most definitely do not include building more prisons and filling them up. 

How is that other countries who imprison a substantially lower percentage of their population don’t have more mass shootings than us? No country even comes close to us. Instead of putting all of the blame on a 14 year old who seems to have been born with the deck stacked against him, maybe we need to look at our society and share some of that blame. Maybe then we can find real solutions.

This. Other countries certainly have their share of problems. But our k-12 education system and mass shootings often are not 2 of them. 

[Ting Tang]

So this might need a separate thread, but how many of us have the threat of school shootings as a reason to homeschool?  It’s on my list. Our local school had several warnings last year.