Charges against father of Georgia shooting suspect test emerging legal strategy

By Rich McKay

ATLANTA (Reuters) -Less than an hour after his 14-year-old son appeared in a Georgia courtroom on murder charges on Friday, Colin Gray found himself in the same courtroom seat, anxiously rocking back and forth as prosecutors accused him of bearing responsibility for the deaths caused by the boy's rampage.

The initial appearances by Colin Gray, 54, and Colt Gray, 14, in the Barrow County courtroom came two days after an attack that killed two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Winder, a city of 18,000 some 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Atlanta. Nine others were wounded.

Colt Gray, an Apalachee student, has been charged as an adult with four counts of murder.

Prosecutors have also charged the father, who faces up to 180 years in prison if convicted of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children. They allege he provided the weapon to his son.

In bringing charges against the father of the accused shooter, prosecutors are implementing an emerging legal approach as the United States grapples with mass gun violence in schools. It is steadily winning support from some survivor groups and state authorities, but critics say the tactic risks prosecutorial overreach and may do little to deter shootings.

Studies by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have shown that around 75% of all school shooters obtained their weapons at home. Experts say that parents securing those weapons so that teenagers are denied access to them would help prevent school shootings.

The Gray case comes on the heels of the April sentencing of the mother and father of a high school shooter in Michigan, believed to be the first time in the United States that parents were held legally responsible for their children's action in a school shooting.

In that instance, Jennifer and James Crumbley, parents of Ethan Crumbley, who in 2021 shot and killed four classmates at Oxford High School, were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison after being convicted for manslaughter. The jury found them guilty of not securing guns in their home and of ignoring warning signs that their son was mentally disturbed.

Karen McDonald, the Michigan prosecutor who put the Crumbley parents on trial, said she hopes high-profile cases like that against Colin Gray in Georgia serve as a wake-up call to gun owners that they need to secure their weapons in the home.

McDonald does not consider her prosecution of the Crumbleys or the charges against Colin Gray to necessarily be about creating a new type of deterrence for gun-owning parents, nor does she think parents of school shooters should always be held responsible for the acts of their children.

"I'd rather focus on what the public should learn, not as a warning you might get prosecuted," McDonald said. "Are you really more worried about being prosecuted, or about kids dying? Just secure your firearm, it takes seconds to do."

A FUNDAMENTAL SHIFT?

Tim Carey, a law and policy adviser for the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, called the charges against Colin Gray surprising but said his arrest does not indicate a fundamental shift in how school shooting cases will be brought to court.

"In the Crumbley case, as well as in this case, parents are not being charged for their child's crimes," said Carey. "The parents are being punished for their own criminal misconduct of enabling this violence to occur."

Neither Colin nor Colt Gray entered a plea on Wednesday. Colt Gray was being held without bond in the Gainesville Regional Youth Detention Center.

His father is accused of knowingly allowing him to have the murder weapon described by authorities as an "AR platform-style weapon" or semiautomatic rifle.

How the son came into possession of the weapon - a key part of the case against the father - is unclear. Authorities have declined so far to offer details.

Cynthia Godsoe, a law professor at the Brooklyn Law School who has practiced family law, said charging parents of school shooters will likely become popular with the public, police and prosecutors because it has the veneer of tackling the problem.

"But this does nothing," she said. "This does nothing to stop school shootings, as egregious as they are. It's a way for police to say they're doing something."

Investigators have yet to comment on what may have motivated the first U.S. campus mass shooting since the start of the school year.

Both of the Grays were interviewed in May 2023 by officials in a neighboring county in connection with online threats about carrying out a school shooting made on the gaming social media platform Discord, according to investigators.

The Grays told the Jackson County Sheriff's Department they had not made the threats. The father also said he had hunting guns locked in a safe in the house and his son did not have access to them.

Jackson County investigators closed the case after being unable to substantiate that either Gray was connected to the Discord account, and did not find grounds to seek the needed court order to confiscate the family's guns.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta, Brad Brooks in Colorado and Liya Cui in New York; Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Jonathan Oatis)