Georgia school shooting: Authorities ‘actively searching’ for suspect after mother’s warning call

CNN
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On the morning of the high school shooting in Winder, Georgia, that left four people dead, authorities were “actively searching” for the teenage suspect after the school received a warning call from his mother. But according to the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office, there was a misunderstanding and they couldn’t reach him quickly enough.

Before the mass shooting at Apalachee High School last week, Colt Gray (14) apologized to his mother, Marcee Gray, in a disturbing, cryptic text message, prompting the mother to warn the school that something might be wrong.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” the text read.

The mother then called the school and asked administrators to check on her son, and that’s when authorities began searching for Colt Gray, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told CNN affiliate WXIA.

“She spoke to someone at the school and we were actively looking for him,” Smith said. “I don’t know if she said he was going to do this or if he planned on doing this, but there were some messages back and forth,” the sheriff added.

An officer went to look for the boy, but there was another student in the same class with “nearly the same name” and he and Colt Gray were not in the classroom at the time, the sheriff said.

“He went to the bathroom with a female student who has a similar name. That’s who they think we’re looking for,” Smith said.

Smith said officers thought they had caught up with Colt Gray in time, but they were actually talking to the other student. “As we’re trying to figure out what’s going on, the shooting starts,” Smith told WXIA.

Authorities allege Colt fired an AR-15-style rifle into the high school, killing two teachers and two students. Nine others who were wounded — eight students and one teacher — are expected to recover, authorities said.

Newly obtained emergency recordings and dispatch data from the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office document the chaos and panic that ensued inside the school when reports of an active shooter were reported and outside the school when concerned parents received panicked text messages from their teens.

The deadly Sept. 4 attack was the 45th school shooting in 2024 and the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. since the shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville in March 2023.

Colt Gray, who authorities say has confessed to the Winder High School attack, is charged with four counts of murder and will be tried as an adult. His attorney, Alfonso Kraft Jr., declined to comment when reached by phone Wednesday.

His father, Colin Gray, has been charged with two counts of second-degree murder, four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children after authorities accused him of knowingly allowing his son to have a gun, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. CNN has contacted Colin Gray’s attorneys.

On the morning of the shooting, a 10-minute phone call was placed from Marcee Gray’s phone to the school at 9:50 a.m. ET, the Washington Post reported.

Colt Gray had left his Algebra 1 class around 9:45 a.m. ET, student Lyela Sayarath, who sat next to him in class, previously told CNN.

She said someone who came to the classroom later looking for Colt Gray mistook him for another student. “An administrator comes in and asks about the kid sitting next to me, but mistakes him for … my friend,” Lyela said.

The first report of the shooting came in at 10:22 a.m. ET via a “RapidSOS” device, according to computer-aided dispatch reports released Friday by Barrow County.

“Active shooter!” an officer can be heard shouting in an audio clip as he speaks to a dispatcher, who repeats the phrase back to him. Another officer can be heard calmly responding, “Correct. We have an active shooter at Apalachee High School.”

Two minutes later, authorities had named the suspect as “Colt” and a student was dead, the reports said.

At 10:30 a.m., the suspect was “in custody, uninjured,” the reports show. Fifteen minutes later, the reports showed one person dead in one hallway and three dead in another hallway.

A female officer, sounding slightly out of breath, asks the dispatcher to call an ambulance. She confirms that emergency medical services are on their way to the high school.

When a woman who identified herself as Colt’s aunt found out what text he had sent, she called 911 in tears just after 11:45 a.m. ET that morning. Sobbing, she told a 911 operator in Barrow County that she feared her nephew was involved in the Apalachee High School shooting, according to a recording released Friday.

“My mom just called me and said Colt texted his mom, my sister, and his dad saying he was sorry, and they called the school and told the counselor to come get him right away,” the woman told the dispatcher. “And then she said she saw shots fired, and I’m just scared it was him.”

The woman then gave her own phone number and that of her sister to the 911 operator, adding that she would prefer they call his mother first, “because I’ve been trying to reach someone for a while.”

“I’m just worried about what’s going to happen,” the woman told the operator.

Meanwhile, a school counselor had told Marcee Gray that her son had referenced school shootings, she told ABC News, prompting her and the teen’s grandfather to travel 200 miles from Fitzgerald to Winder, Georgia.

New footage shows parents called 911 on the day of the shooting because they were concerned about their children’s safety.

“A parent is on the phone with their child,” an officer says urgently in a recording. “They’re in the art room, locked in.”

A male caller told a dispatcher in another recording that his daughter, a school psychologist, was working with a student in a trailer “next to where the shooting occurred.” He said his daughter tried to hide behind a desk with the student.

“I want them to know that she’s in a trailer and she can’t lock the doors. If they can check the trailers, hopefully they can check and get her out,” the man can be heard saying.

The dispatcher confirmed whether the student was with the psychologist, to which the caller replied, “Yes, and she didn’t want to call, she didn’t want to make any noise.”