Video from an officer’s body-cam shows Colt Gray and his father Colin as they were interviewed about ‘shooting up a school’ in 2023
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Suspected Georgia school shooter, Colt Gray, denied making a threat intending to “shoot up a middle school” when officers from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office interviewed him on the front steps of the family home in 2023.
Video from an officer’s body camera shows Gray and his father Colin as they were interviewed by police about the threat. The Sheriff’s office had received a tip from the FBI that a threat had been made on Discord, a voice, video and text chat application.
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The body-cam video was released on Monday.
Gray has been charged with the murder of two students and two teachers.
His father, Colin, has been charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in connection with his son’s alleged killings. Authorities said he knowingly allowed his son to have the weapon allegedly used in the shooting spree – an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle given to Colt by Colin as a gift.
Father of accused Georgia school shooter could face 180 years in prison
The video, spanning less than three minutes, begins with police speaking with Colin about his son as well as accessible guns in the home.
He tells police that his oldest son, Colt, 13, lives with him and then moves to get his son to come out and speak with the officers at their request.
“Now look, he gonna get all red-faced. When you talk to him – just (be) calm,” Colin instructs the officers.
An officer then asks if there are “weapons in the house” and whether they “are accessible to (Colt).”
“They are. I mean there is nothing loaded but they are there,” Colin responds and states that he and Colt “do a lot of shootin’, do a lot of deer-huntin’. (Colt) shot his first deer this year.”
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The video breaks momentarily when it appears that police ask about Colt making the threat.
“I don’t know about him saying anything like that. I’m gonna be mad as hell if he did,” Colin responds. “And then all the guns will go away. And they won’t be accessible to him.”
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He goes on to tell the officers: “To be honest with you, I’m trying to teach him about firearms and safety” while suggesting his aim was to get his son “interested in the outdoors.”
Before finally moving to get Colt, he says: “Please instill in him that…wherever this (threat) is coming from, this is no joke. Like, it’s no joke.”
Police tell Colin they “wouldn’t be (there) if it was.”
“I know,” responds Colin. “I’m telling you right now, we talk about it quite a bit. All the school shootings. Things that happen.”
He adds that Colt got picked on in school: “He is. He’s getting picked in school.”
Colin claims he keeps checking in with Colt asking him if “everything is okay”.
After another break in the video, Colt appears on the front step with his father, with the father seated drinking a beer, as Colt stands unassumingly to the right of his dad.
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An officer asks Colt if his father explained why the police were asking questions.
“He said something about school – shooting up a school,” says Colt.
Police ask Colt if he had said something about a school shooting.
He responds meekly: “Never. I just told him. I don’t know what. Maybe they misheard somebody else. I don’t remember saying.”
The rest of his response is inaudible.
“You never, ever said,” begins the next police question.
“No sir. I swear,” says Colt.
Then police ask him if he uses Discord.
“Discord? Um, I used to. I don’t have it anymore.”
Police ask when he last used it.
He appears to claim he used it at a previous home. Father and son had recently moved when Colin separated from Colt’s mother.
“Um, man. Like a few months ago…and that Discord account that I had, I had deleted it before because…Yeah, because I think it got like, it had been password-pulled or something, like I had clicked on a link, and somebody had (pulled it).”
Police ask Colt if he “heard anybody on Discord when you were using it, say something like that?”
“At that time? I don’t think so. I don’t think I ever had anybody that (said that).”
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Then the officer tells father and son police are not “trying to get anybody penned up. (But) this is serious stuff.”
“Oh, he knows how serious it is. Trust me,” Colin responds for his son.
The officer then confirms with Colt that he has no memory of making the threat and that he takes him at his word.
“Yes, sir,” says Colt.
“You look me in the eye and tell me that’s what you’re telling me,” the officer says to Colt. “I got no choice but to take you at your word.”
The interview then appears to conclude and the video ends.
In an interview Tuesday with ABC News Colt’s mother claimed teachers had noticed her son making references to violence at the school — even before she called school administrators to warn the administrators about him.
She says the school counsellor told her one of Colt’s teachers had sent the counsellor an email, which stated Colt had been making references to school shootings,’” Marcee Gray told ABC News in a video interview from her home.
Colt Gray appeared in court last Friday but did not enter a plea.
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