Colt Gray, the 14-year-old student accused of killing four people in a Georgia high school shooting, rode the school bus that morning with a semi-automatic assault rifle concealed in his backpack, investigators confirmed Thursday. During his second period, he left the classroom after getting permission to go to the front office at Apalachee High School, then hid from teachers in a bathroom before beginning the assault, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith. The new details fill in some key questions about how the 14-year-old got a gun that could not be folded down into the school in Winder, northeast of Atlanta, before a shooting that killed two students and two teachers and injured nine others, The Associated Press reports.
Marcee Gray, the suspect’s mother, says that she called the school in a panic on the morning of Sept. 4 after getting a text message from her son saying “I’m sorry.” School officials told her that morning that they were already worried about her son’s behavior. “The counselor said, ‘Well, I want to let you know that earlier this morning, one of Colt’s teachers has sent me an email that said Colt had been making references to school shootings,” Gray said in an interview with ABC News published Tuesday. Marcee Gray and other relatives on her side of the family have said they had sought the school’s assistance the week before the shooting to get psychiatric treatment for Colt Gray. Colt Gray is charged as an adult with four counts of murder, and District Attorney Brad Smith has said more charges are likely to be filed against him in connection with those that he wounded. Authorities have also charged his father, Colin Gray, alleging that he gave his son access to the gun when he knew or should have known that the teen was a danger to himself and others. Colin Gray, the boy’s father, received similar text messages that morning, Marcee Gray said.
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