Mom of Georgia shooting survivor slams school for not stopping gunman after warnings: ‘The school failed them’

The mother of a Georgia high school student where a teen gunned down four people said school staff could have stopped the slaughter.

“They could have prevented these deaths and they didn’t,” Rabecca Sayarath told the Associated Press. “The school failed them.”

Apalachee High School administrators seemed to know something was amiss with the accused shooter, 14-year-old Colt Gray, moments before the rampage that left four dead.

Sayarath’s daughter, Lyela, said school staff appeared to be searching for the teen on the morning of Wednesday, September 4. She said Gray had left her algebra classroom, and she thought he was skipping class. Soon after, an administrator entered the classroom and demanded to see the bag of a student with a similar name to Gray’s.

Minutes later, the shooting began.

Gray’s aunt, Annie Brown, told the Washington Post that the boy’s mother, Marcee, had called the school to warn of an “extreme emergency,” urging them to locate her son immediately.

“I was the one that notified the school counselor at the high school,” Brown’s sister wrote in text messages provided to the Washington Post, which also reported that a call log from the family’s shared phone plan showed that a call was made to the school 30 minutes before police records say the shooting started.

Brown confirmed the reporting to the Associated Press on Saturday.

Gray has been charged with the murder of fellow students Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, both 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53. Eight other students and a teacher were injured — seven of them shot — and are expected to recover.

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The Washington Post also reported that texts show relatives contacted the school about the boy’s mental health a week before the shooting, and that Brown told a relative he was having “homicidal and suicidal thoughts.” The newspaper reported that the teen’s grandmother, Deborah Polhamus, met with a school counselor to request help.

The boy “starts with the therapist tomorrow,” Polhamus wrote in a text to Brown after that meeting.

Marcee Gray expressed remorse for her son’s actions.

“It’s horrible. It’s absolutely horrible,” Gray told the New York Post outside her father’s home in Fitzgerald, Georgia, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) south of Atlanta.

“I am so, so sorry and can not fathom the pain and suffering they are going through right now,” Gray told the Washington Post in a text.

The alleged shooter’s grandfather, Charles Polhamus, 81, placed the blame on the boy’s father, Colin Gray, who authorities say gave his son access to the semi-automatic AR-15 rifle used in the shooting.

Polhamus said his ex-son-in-law should get the death penalty for his role in the massacre.

“Spending 11 years with that son of a bitch screaming and hollering every day — it can affect anybody,” Polhamus said.

Grandpa of accused Georgia school shooter Colt Gray says teen’s ‘evil’ father should get death penalty for provoking massacre

“He’s evil,” Polhamus said of Gray.

“They couldn’t, they didn’t survive in it,” he said of the family.

As for whether the school could have stopped the rampage, others are declining to blame school or law enforcement officials.

“I’m not going to referee or second-guess what happened with the authorities the other night,” US Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “I applaud our first responders. When others are running away from danger, they run toward the danger in order to do the best they can.”

Investigators haven’t said what they believe might have motivated Gray or whether they believe he targeted particular victims.

Though authorities have said Colin Gray gave his son access to the rifle used in the shooting, it’s not clear how the boy brought the gun to campus or what he did with it in the two hours between school starting at 8:15 a.m. and when shots first rang out.

Colin Gray became the first parent of a school shooting suspect to be charged in Georgia, District Attorney Brad Smith said Friday. He’s accused of second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children for providing his son with the rifle.

Colin Gray is jailed in Barrow County after declining to seek bail in a brief court hearing Friday in Winder. Colt Gray is being held in a juvenile detention center after declining to seek bail. Neither has been indicted or entered a plea.

Lyela Sayarath said Wednesday that Colt Gray had left her algebra classroom and that she believed he was skipping class.

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In the minutes before the shooting, a female administrator came to her class looking for a student with the same last name and almost identical first name as Gray, she said. That other student was in the bathroom, but the administrator demanded to see his bag. That student returned with his bag moments later, Sayarath said, and told her that administrators had concluded he wasn’t the student they were looking for.

Someone also called the teacher on the intercom, apparently asking about Gray, Sayarath said. She said as the intercom buzzed a second time, the teacher responded, “Oh, he’s here,” seeing Gray outside the classroom door.

When students went to open the door, which automatically locks from the inside when closed, Sayarath said, they backed away. She said she saw Colt Gray turn away through the window of the door and then she heard gunshots — “10 or 15 of them at once, back to back.”

Rabecca Sayarath, Lyela’s mother, has said she believed the school erred by sending an unarmed administrator to look for Colt Gray instead of one of Apalachee High’s armed school resource officers.

When she questioned Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith about her daughter’s account at a Wednesday night news conference, Smith cautioned, “With all due respect, ma’am, I think your information is incorrect.”

It’s unclear if Barrow County school authorities knew before the shooting that Colt and Colin Gray previously had been interviewed by a sheriff’s deputy in neighboring Jackson County in May 2023 after a report of an online threat to shoot up a middle school that Colt Gray, then 13, attended.

Colt Gray told the deputy that “he would never say such a thing, even in a joking manner,” according to a report filed by investigators. No action was taken because of inconsistent information about the social media account used to make the threats.

Colin Gray told the investigator back then that Colt had access to unloaded guns in the house but knew “how to use them and not use them.” He also said his son had struggled since he and his wife separated and that Colt was picked on in school.

Nicole Valles, a spokesperson for the Barrow County school district, declined to comment Sunday in response to emailed questions seeking more details about what may have happened before the shooting.

“Because this is an active investigation and now court proceedings have begun, we are not commenting on specific details,” Valles wrote, referring questions to the district attorney.

Smith didn’t immediately respond to emails Sunday with similar questions, while the Georgia Bureau of Investigation referred requests for comment to the district attorney.

— With Post wire reports

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