Mother of Georgia shooter made frantic call to school before shooting started

The mother of the alleged shooter who killed four people at a Georgia high school was so spooked by a text she received from her son that she called the school to warn them.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Marcee Gray, 43, said she called and warned the counselor about an “extreme emergency.”

Her son, Colt Gray, 14, has been charged with four counts of murder in the subsequent shooting on Sept. 4 at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, Georgia.

Text messages obtained by the Post corroborate Marcee Gray’s account.

“I was the one that notified the school counselor at the high school,” Marcee Gray texted her sister following the shooting, according to a screenshot of the exchange, published by the Post. “I told them it was an extreme emergency and for them to go immediately and find [my son] to check on him.” 

That call was placed at 9:50 a.m., 30 minutes prior to police response to an active shooter call at Apalachee High School, reports CNN. 

Phone logs, texts and interviews shared by the Gray family with the Post raise questions about what the school authorities and law enforcement knew prior to the shooting. 

Gray’s family alleges that a counselor at the school confided to Marcee Gray that Colt had been talking about a school shooting earlier in the morning. 

The New York Post said the call to the counselor sent an administrator at the school searching for Colt but couldn’t find him in his assigned classroom. 

Witnesses say Colt left algebra class at 9:45 a.m., according to CNN.  

The accounts related by the Gray family also conflict with claims by local law enforcement, which said the tragedy was unforeseen and unpreventable.  

Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told CNN there were no prior warnings of a possible threat. 

But a family member of one of the victims disputed that statement. 

“We believe it was preventable – 100%,” Lisette Angulo, whose brother Christian was killed in the attack, told CNN. “They knew of the situation beforehand and didn’t take proper action to prevent this tragedy from happening.” 

CNN said that in addition to the call from Marcee Gray, an “unknown caller” also dialed and warned the school of five planned school shootings that day, prior to the murders. 

“The school failed them, that they could have prevented these deaths and they didn’t,” Rabecca Sayarath, a mother of a high school student told The Associated Press. “I truly, truly feel that way.” 

Colt’s family said he had been struggling with homicidal and suicidal thoughts and he should have been in therapy. 

The school had previously arranged therapy for Colt, after it was requested by his grandmother, but it was unclear whether that therapy took place, reported The Washington Post.  

CBS News reported that Gray had been interviewed in 2023 about alleged threats made online regarding a school shooting that was sent anonymously to the FBI. 

The FBI sent the information to local law enforcement officers who interviewed Gray, but the boy denied the allegations.  

In addition to the four killed, nine others were injured during the shooting.