Prosecutors’ swift decision to charge the father of the 14-year-old suspect in the Georgia high school shooting will provide a new test of whether parents can be held criminally responsible for their children’s actions.
The charges against Collin Gray came months after the parents of a Michigan school shooter were convicted of manslaughter, the first time parents have been convicted in the United States for a mass shooting of their child.
Details of the case against Gray, 54, are unclear, but authorities in Georgia arrested him Thursday on suspicion of allowing his son to possess a weapon.
Gray made his first court appearance Friday morning, separate from his son, Colt Gray, 14, who had appeared earlier. The judge said the suspect, a freshman at Apalachee High School in Winder, is charged with four counts of murder for killing two students and two teachers in a shooting Wednesday morning that also left nine others wounded.
Collin Gray rocked back and forth in his chair and looked down during his court appearance, as the judge said he was charged with four counts of manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of second-degree child abuse.
Piedmont Judicial District District Attorney Brad Smith said at a press conference later that “we weren’t trying to send a message” by prosecuting the parents of the first Georgia child charged in a mass shooting.
“I expect prosecutors to use every tool and tool in their arsenal to hold those responsible accountable for the crimes they committed,” Smith said.
The teenage suspect, who was charged as an adult, was already known to police.
The father and son were interviewed by local authorities in May 2023 in connection with the threats to carry out a school shooting, two law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation told NBC News, but they did not arrest the boy because authorities were unable to link him to the online accounts from which the threats were made, according to investigative documents.
Information about the school shooting threat was received by the FBI through a user of Discord, a chat platform popular with online video game enthusiasts, and the FBI traced the threat to an account registered by someone with the name of Collin Gray.
But the son denied making the online threats, according to documents, and local authorities ultimately determined that the FBI’s report was inconsistent with information discovered during the investigation.
According to records, Collin Gray told investigators that while he was living with his son while separated from his wife, he was teaching the boy “firearms and safety” and how to hunt.
Gray told investigators that if his son made any threats, he would be “furious and would get rid of all his guns.”
But at some point after his interaction with authorities, Gray bought his son an AR-15-style rifle as a gift, police officials said.
There are similarities to the 2021 Oxford, Michigan, high school shooting by a 15-year-old boy.
His parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, were also found partly responsible, with Oakland County prosecutors convincing jurors in separate trials this year that they repeatedly ignored warning signs that “reasonable people” would have recognized, such as their son’s deteriorating mental health and social isolation, and that they could have done more to prevent him from acquiring a weapon. The parents had bought him a semi-automatic handgun as an early Christmas present.
The Crumbleys were ultimately sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison.
But the charges against Gray are far more severe, and the judge said Friday that if convicted on all counts he could face a maximum combined sentence of 180 years in prison.
Smith said Friday that the second-degree felony murder charge against Gray was directed at “child abuse” and that the two charges were brought against him because of the two students who were killed.
Smith said the four counts of manslaughter are based on the four victims who died and could hinge on whether someone demonstrated “reckless conduct.”
Georgia law prohibits the sale or provision of pistols or revolvers to minors under the age of 18, but there may be limited exceptions for cases where a minor may handle a firearm, such as during a hunting course, at a shooting range, or on property with parental permission.
Smith declined to comment on whether Gray had gun locks or other devices to store guns in the home.
J. Tom Morgan, a former DeKalb County, Georgia, prosecutor who now teaches criminology at Western Carolina University, said he expects Gray’s defense to seek dismissal of the charges.
But while Georgia, unlike other states, does not have a “safe storage” law to ensure firearms are not easily accessible to children, Morgan said parents have a duty to make sure firearms are not easily accessible to children, especially if they have violent tendencies.
“I grew up in rural Georgia, where we’re very supportive of the Second Amendment,” Morgan said, “but the hunters I know are very responsible. If you have a gun, you have to have it responsibly.”
Georgia criminal defense lawyer Andrew Fleischman said the case against Gray will depend on whether prosecutors can prove he knowingly disregarded a substantial and unreasonable risk that other minors would suffer undue physical or emotional harm.
“If a father buys a gun for his child knowing that the child has threatened to shoot a classmate, the father has consciously disregarded that risk,” Fleischman said. “The risk is likely substantial given the prior threats, and the conduct is unjustified because there is no legitimate reason to buy an AR-15-type rifle for a child.”
Michael Desi, an attorney representing Jennifer Crumbly, who is seeking to appeal the conviction, said the Georgia charges are an example of states shifting the responsibility to parents in the face of their failure to enact meaningful gun control laws.
As in the case of the Crumbleys’ son, who pleaded guilty as an adult and received a life sentence, Desi said it is “inconsistent” to prosecute the shooter as an adult while also holding his parents responsible.
“This is a very dangerous path to take and sets a bad precedent where people start suing parents for actions that are more like negligence that could be resolved civilly,” he said.
But Karen McDonald, the Michigan prosecutor who prosecuted the Crumbleys, said the case was not intended to set a precedent and involved such a “rare and egregious set of facts” that she hopes it never happens again.
McDonald told NBC affiliate WDIV that the Georgia prosecutors’ case would be a positive outcome if it “makes people question where these guns are coming from.”
Still, gun control groups have expressed concern that new mass shootings could occur despite the Michigan trial, which drew national attention for being the first to result in the conviction of the parents of a mass shooter.
“This sentence should have sent a clear message to people like Mr. Gray,” Nick Saplina, senior vice president of legal and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety, said in a statement. “But unfortunately for the victim and his family, he did not heed that message to prevent tragedies.”