Suspect in deadly Apalachee High School shooting has made school shooting threats before, FBI says

BARROW COUNTY, Ga. — Wednesday isn’t the first time a teenager threatened to commit a school shooting, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The FBI confirms that Colt Gray, the suspect in the deadly shooting at Apalachee High School, was behind threats to commit a school shooting in May 2023.

Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said they were made aware of the threats made to an online gaming site, and interviewed a 13-year-old and his father. The boy denied making the threats. Investigators determined that the threats could not be substantiated.

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The boy’s father confirmed that he had hunting guns in the house, but that he did not have unsupervised access to the weapons.

The FBI confirmed that the 13-year-old involved in that investigation was Gray.

They say that there was no probable cause for arrest at that time.

Gray has now been accused of killing four people and wounding nine others in a shooting inside Apalachee High School, where he was a student, on Wednesday.

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Mason Schermerhorn, an Apalachee student with autism, is one of the victims who was killed in the shooting, his mother confirmed to Channel 2 Action News.

Another woman said her father, Apalachee curriculum specialist and coach David Phenix, was shot in the foot and hip, shattering his hip bone. He is stable in the hospital.

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Colt Gray: What we know about 14-year-old Apalachee High School shooting suspect

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