Georgia suspect Colt Gray honored Sandy Hook killer by way of Discord and saved writings on faculty shooters | EUROtoday

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The suspected shooter, who allegedly killed 4 folks at a Georgia highschool, was “obsessed” with prior faculty shootings, in response to a number of studies.

Colt Gray, 14, a pupil at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, was taken into custody following the lethal mass taking pictures on Wednesday. He has been charged within the deaths of scholars Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, each 14, and academics Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, in response to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

At least 9 different folks — eight college students and one instructor — had been wounded and brought to hospitals. All had been anticipated to outlive, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith mentioned.

On Thursday, Colin Gray, 54, the daddy of the suspect, was arrested and charged with 4 counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree homicide, and eight counts of cruelty to youngsters, in response to GBI.

Colin Gray reportedly bought his son an AR 15-style rifle as a vacation reward in 2023, legislation enforcement mentioned, after that they had been visited by officers about alleged threats in May 2023.

An investigation into the the boy’s life has revealed he had taken an curiosity in different notorious faculty shootings together with Parkland in 2018 and Sandy Hook in 2012.

Authorities searched the teenager’s bed room at his Georgia residence this week and located paperwork referencing previous faculty shootings, a legislation enforcement supply advised CNN.

The paperwork included writings, believed to be written by Colt Gray, that referenced the 2018 bloodbath at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, by which former pupil Nikolas Cruz killed 17 folks and wounded 17 others. Law enforcement sources advised the New York Times that he was “obsessed” with the taking pictures.

More than a yr earlier than Gray allegedly went on the lethal rampage at his Georgia faculty, he was already on the FBI’s radar.

In May 2023, the daddy and son had been interviewed by authorities from neighboring Jackson County who obtained a tip from the FBI that the boy, then 13, “had possibly threatened to shoot up a middle school tomorrow.”

The FBI’s tip had pointed to a Discord account related to an electronic mail tackle linked to the Georgia teen, the report mentioned. But the boy advised a sheriff’s investigator “he would never say such a thing, even in a joking manner.”

The account’s profile identify, written in Russian, translated to “Lanza.” The investigator famous that Adam Lanza was the gunman who killed 20 folks at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.

When questioned by the deputies, Gray’s father advised them he had looking weapons in the home, however his son didn’t have unsupervised entry to them.

But the investigator wrote that no arrests had been made due to “inconsistent information” on the Discord account, which had profile data in Russian and a digital proof path indicating it had been accessed in several Georgia cities in addition to Buffalo, New York.

Authorities had been nonetheless wanting into how the teenager bought the gun into the varsity with about 1,900 college students in a quickly creating space on the sting of metro Atlanta.

The Georgia assault is the newest in dozens of faculty shootings throughout the U.S. in recent times, together with particularly lethal ones in Newtown, Connecticut; Parkland, Florida; and Uvalde, Texas. The classroom killings have set off fervent debates about gun management and frayed the nerves of oldsters whose youngsters are rising up accustomed to active-shooter drills. But there was little change to nationwide gun legal guidelines.

Classes had been canceled Thursday on the Georgia highschool, although folks got here to go away flowers across the flagpole and kneel within the grass with heads bowed.

Colt Gray was taken to a regional youth detention facility on Thursday. His first court docket look is scheduled for Friday. He faces 4 counts of homicide and is anticipated to be tried as an grownup.