Report shares details on investigation into accused Barrow Co. school shooter threat made last year

BARROW COUNTY, Ga. — In the aftermath of a deadly school shooting in Barrow County on Wednesday, details are being revealed about the shooting suspect’s past brushes with law enforcement.

As Channel 2 Action News reported Wednesday, officers spoke to then-13-year-old shooting suspect Colt Gray last year after receiving information from federal agents that he may be tied to threats made against a school.

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

In a statement shared with Channel 2 Action News, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said they had shared information with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office after Colt Gray posted pictures of guns online and made anonymous threats to shoot at a then-unidentified school.

The 2023 incident report from Jackson County investigators said they got information from the FBI about Colt Gray possibly threatening to shoot up a middle school the next day. According to the report, the tip was given to the sheriff’s office on May 21, 2023.

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An FBI agent monitoring the social media platform Discord had gotten the information about Colt Gray’s potential school shooting, and deputies went to a home on Rice Creek Court in Jefferson, Ga.

When they arrived, they found a man who told them he had a Discord account he had not used in “some time” but had initially been a way for him to play and discuss fantasy football. He said the previous tenants of the house, with the last name Gray, had been evicted three months previously.

When deputies arrived at the home, they found Colin Gray and his son, Colt. The teen told them he deleted his Discord account before he and his father moved to their new home.

“Colt expressed concern that someone is accusing him of threatening to shoot up a school, stating that he would never say such a thing, even in a joking manner,” the incident report from Jackson County says.

Deputies told Colin Gray to keep his son out of school until the matter was “resolved.” Further investigation of the Discord account showed that the account was made after when the teen said he’d deleted his account.

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When deputies spoke to Colt Gray and his father, the father said he had hunting guns in the house, but that his son did not have access to the guns without supervision. The teen himself told deputies that he had not made the threats online.

Evidence shared with deputies showed a variety of IP addresses associated with the Discord account, ranging from different parts of Georgia and locations in New York and Virginia.

The profile for the Discord account also had a user name “written in Russian. Translation of the Russian letters spells out the name Lanza, referring to Adam Lanza, who is the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooter in Newton, Conn.,” the incident report says.

When deputies asked Colin Gray about the inconsistencies in his son’s statements, he insisted that the associated email address was not his or his son’s and that his son does not know or speak Russian.

Colt Gray also told the deputies that “he stopped using Discord because too many people kept hacking his account and he was afraid someone would use his information for nefarious purposes.”

Deputies were unable to substantiate the information in the tip to take further action, the report says.

While Jackson County officials told local schools to keep monitoring Colt Gray, the FBI said at the time, “there was no probable cause for arrest” or for any additional actions by local, state or federal law enforcement agencies.

Now, a year and several months after this interaction with deputies, Colt Gray is accused of shooting 13 people, four of whom died Wednesday at Apalachee High School near Winder, Ga.

The victims’ names are:

• Mason Schermerhorn, 14
• Christian Angulo, 14
• Richard Aspinwall, 39
• Christina Irimie, 53

At this time, Colt Gray remains in custody at the Gainesville Regional Youth Detention Center.

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