Colin Gray, the father of the teen charged with fatally shooting four people at his Georgia high school last week, is requesting protection in jail due to what his lawyers say are an "incalculable number of threats" from fellow inmates.
In a court filing Wednesday, Gray's attorneys asked for the 54-year-old to be kept separate from all other inmates to "ensure his personal safety," citing a "nonstop barrage of information" caused by news and social media coverage of the shooting that led to inmates calling for "both harm and violence to befall" Gray and even some calling for his death.
"It is certain that these feelings of anger and retribution manifested in the collective psyche, of both the public and the community at large, are not also represented in the individuals currently incarcerated with the defendant at the Barrow County Detention Center," Gray's attorneys wrote. "In fact, so many lives in the community of Barrow County have been touched in unfathomable ways, it would be reckless to assume there are NO inmates, either currently or in the near future, being housed in the Barrow County Detention Center, who wish harm on the defendant."
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Gray is currently being held without bail on four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children. Upon arresting him on Sept. 5, authorities said Gray allowed his 14-year-old son to possess the weapon the student allegedly used to kill two students and two teachers and injure nine others at Apalachee High School the day prior.
Georgia authorities had interviewed Gray and his son in May 2023 after receiving a tip that the teen had made online threats of committing a school shooting. The suspect, who is being charged as an adult, denied making the threats, while Gray told the Jackson County Sheriff's investigator his son was dealing with bullying at school as well as struggling with his parent's separation.
According to interview transcripts, Gray also said the family talked "quite a bit" about school shootings and that although his son was familiar with guns and hunting, he did not have "unsupervised" access to the weapons in the house.
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"He knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do and how to use them and not use them," Gray told officers in the interview video, reviewed by Scripps News. "And so it's kind of a little bit a shock. So, in whatever y'all are telling him, please instill in him that if this, whatever or wherever this is coming from, this is no joke."
The FBI said there was no probable cause for arrest or law enforcement action at the time.
On the day of the shooting, the teen's mother called the high school staff about 30 minutes before gunfire erupted and urged them to "immediately" find her son and check on him, according to texts the mother's sister shared with the Washington Post.
An update from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation alleges the suspect went to school that morning with an assault-style rifle in his backpack and was given permission to leave class shortly before opening fire. The GBI says its investigation into the shooting is still ongoing, but the agency plans to provide a timeline of events "at the appropriate time."
