The jailed father of Georgia high school shooting suspect Colt Gray has asked that he be held separately from other inmates, fearing a backlash over the shooting that left two students and two teachers dead.
According to the complaint reviewed by The Washington Post, Collin Gray, 54, has received “countless threats” since his 14-year-old son was identified as a suspect in the Sept. 4 killing of four people at Apalachee High School in Winder.
Some of the threats “even demand the defendant's death,” Gray's lawyers wrote.
“The feelings of anger and retaliation that are evident in the collective psyche of the general public and the community at large are certainly not evident among the individuals currently incarcerated with defendant in the Barrow County Detention Center,” the lawsuit argues.
The motion argued that given the trauma experienced by the community, it would be “reckless” for the court to assume there would be no inmates within the facility who would seek to harm Mr Gray.
Collin Gray was arrested Friday and charged with more than a dozen counts in connection to the Apalachee shooting, which he allegedly carried out using an AR-style rifle that his father gave him for Christmas.
A relative of the boy's mother told The Washington Post that the boy's father believed the gun would help “make him stronger.”
“Colin always thought Colt was too nice, too sweet, which is why I think he gave him the rifle,” the source claimed.
Collin Gray is charged with four counts of manslaughter, as well as two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of child abuse.
He is currently being held without bail, according to the latest criminal complaint. If convicted, he faces up to 180 years in prison.
Colt Gray turned himself in to school security at the scene and was charged as an adult with four counts of felony murder.
His mother, Marcie, had called the high school shortly before the shooting to warn the school about suspicious text messages she had received from her son.
School officials quickly swung into action but made the fatal mistake of searching not for the shooter but for another student, Colton Gray.
Colt Gray's maternal grandfather, Charles Polhamus, blamed Colin Gray for the tragedy.
“It could happen to anyone to spend 11 years living with a son of a bitch who yelled and screamed at them every day,” Polhamus, 81, said of his former son-in-law.
“Colt has to pay for what he did, but there's no question he was driven,” Polhamus said. “He was driven by his father, that's as clear as I can make it, and I know I'm right.”
“He needs the death penalty,” his grandfather said of Mr. Gray.
Colt Gray was already under the watch of authorities after being flagged in May 2023 on the online messaging platform Discord in connection with a school shooting threat.
During the initial investigation, audio recordings of conversations between Collin Gray and sheriff's officers revealed that Gray, who was 13 at the time, had weapons in his home.
“We actually do a lot of shooting, we do a lot of deer hunting, and my son shot his first deer this year,” the father said, adding that he was “shocked” and “a little angry” about the allegations.
“I have no knowledge of him saying anything like that and I would be furious if he did,” he said.
