Apalachee school shooting: Colt Gray denies 2023 school threat in audio from deputy’s interview

BARROW COUNTY, Ga. — Channel 2 Action News has obtained audio from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office interview with Colin and Colt Gray last year when the younger Gray was investigated for threats made against a school.

Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Justin Gray obtained a copy of the investigative report that details investigators’ May 2023 interview with the teenager and his father surrounding the threats.

In the audio associated with those interviews, 14-year-old Colt Gray’s voice can be heard denying he made the threats on social media platform Discord.

“And I, like I told him I promise I would never say something where [inaudible],” Colt Gray can be heard saying. “The only thing I have is TikTok but I just go on there and watch videos.”

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At that time, investigators found no probable cause to arrest and charged Colt Gray.

Justin Gray spoke with Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum about the reports.

“Are you looking back now over those incident reports, over those records and wondering or thinking, could we have done anything differently here?” Justin Gray asked the sheriff.

“Of course,” she replied. “I have read them over and over and over, and I think that the investigator did what he could do with what he had to work with at the time.”

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Audio recordings from the interview go on to show Colin Gray telling police that his son was bullied at school and he had been teaching his son hunting and gun safety to get his focus off of video games.

“This goes all the way back to me like introducing him to bow hunting, then it was a pellet gun, then it was a 22 and gun safety all of this because I worry about him,” Colin Gray can be heard saying.

Colin Gray can also be heard saying that he had asked his son’s middle school for help several times.

“He gets flustered and under pressure. He doesn’t really think straight can we just you know just kind of put your arms around him,” he said. “I just wanna make sure he’s good.”

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