The father of a mass shooter who opened fire at a Georgia high school, killing four people, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for providing his son with the gun.
Colin Gray, 55, was sentenced on Thursday, just two days after his son, Colt Gray, 16, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in the Sep. 4, 2024, shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia.
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Colin Gray is one of three parents who have been charged in school shootings across the United States. He was found guilty by jurors in March of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter for the killings of two 14-year-old students and two teachers. During his trial, jurors returned the verdict in less than two hours. One additional teacher and eight other students were injured in the shooting, many of whom were struck by gunfire.
Judge Nicholas Primm sentenced the father on Thursday and also oversaw the sentencing of the son. Primm told Colin Gray that he had “failed as a parent,” but noted that punishing negligence is difficult because they lack intent.
Colin Gray had given his son the rifle used at Apalachee High School as a Christmas gift, along with ammunition, a sight, and other accessories. Colt Gray had exhibited signs of poor mental health leading up to the mass shooting and was a member of a “true crime community” that frequently discussed mass shootings. Colt Gray’s mother, Marcee Gray, was separated from Colin Gray at the time and told investigators she had asked her husband to keep their son away from his firearms.
Prosecutors had pushed for a sentence of 80 years for Colin Gray, arguing that he had ignored the signs his son was planning a detrimental act.
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“This was the risk that he was ignoring, that there would be a mass shooting of children at a school, and he gave his son the exact tool he would need to accomplish this,” Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith said.
In the 2021 Oxford High School shooting in Michigan, the parents of 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison for ignoring their son’s declining mental health and providing him with the weapon he used to carry out the attack. The father of a school shooter in Washington state was convicted of possessing a firearm not registered to him, but was not charged for the shooting itself.
