First picture of 14-year-old Georgia school shooting suspect Colt Gray

5 September 2024, 22:38

The 14-year-old suspected of killing four people in a school shooting in Georgia has been pictured.

Police released the mugshot of Colt Gray, 14, who is accused of killing two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Winder, northeast of Atlanta, on Wednesday.

Gray surrendered himself when engaged by School Resource Officers inside the school, Barrow County police said.

Police have said they won’t be “releasing body camera videos or audio to protect the integrity of the investigation".

Nine others were injured during the alleged school shooting.

The teen has been charged as an adult in the deaths of Apalachee High School students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, along with instructors Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, Georgia Bureau of Investigation director Chris Hosey said at a news conference.

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Armed with an assault-style rifle, the teen allegedly turned the gun on students in a hallway at the school when classmates refused to open the door for him to return to his algebra classroom, classmate Lyela Sayarath said.

Colt and his father had been interviewed after the FBI received anonymous tips in May 2023 about online threats to commit an unspecified school shooting, the agency said in a statement.

The sheriff's office interviewed the then-13-year-old and his father, who said there were hunting guns in the house but the teen did not have unsupervised access to them.

Local news outlets reported that law enforcement on Wednesday searched the teen's family home in Bethlehem, Georgia, east of the high school.

"All the students that had to watch their teachers and their fellow classmates die, the ones that had to walk out of the school limping, that looked traumatised," Miss Sayarath said.

"That's the consequence of the action of not taking control."

President Biden has said he is "mourning" the tragic loss of life on what should have been a "joyous" return to school.

“What should have been a joyous back-to-school season in Winder, Georgia, has now turned into another horrific reminder of how gun violence continues to tear our communities apart. Students across the country are learning how to duck and cover instead of how to read and write. We cannot continue to accept this as normal,” the president said in a statement.

"This is everybody’s worst nightmare and I just want to offer my sincere condolences and our thoughts and prayers to the families that have lost loved ones, for those that are injured and continuing to fight through just a tragic time," Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said at a press conference.

"Pure evil happened today," Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith added.

"Our hearts are with the victims and loved ones of those affected by the tragic event in Winder, GA," former president Donald Trump wrote

"These cherished children were taken from us far too soon by a sick and deranged monster."