Federal investigators issued stern warnings about Colt Gray's disturbing online activity more than a year before he committed the Georgia high school shooting, but police closed their investigation after just two days without seizing any guns from his home.
According to a police report reviewed by The Washington Post, the Jackson County Sheriff's Office went to Gray's home in May 2023 after receiving a tip from the FBI that Colt had threatened to shoot up a middle school on Discord, an online messaging service popular with gamers.
Officers spoke with Colt's father, Collin Gray, and Colt himself, who was 13 years old at the time.
Colt told police he had deleted his Discord account and “expressed concern” that someone was falsely accusing him of threatening to shoot up a school, but insisted he “would never say something like that, even in jest.”
Collin admitted that there were “hunting rifles” in the home and that Colt had occasional supervised access to them.
Officers urged Colt to keep the gun in a locked place and advised him not to attend school “until this matter is resolved,” but school was already closed for the year.
Police revisited the FBI tip two days later and zeroed in on a Discord account that was created after Colt claimed he had deleted it and that used several different IP addresses in multiple states.
Photos attached to the tip showed the profile name written in Russian and translated as “Lanza,” which investigators said was a reference to Adam Lanza, the 2012 shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Upon bringing this information back to Gray's home, Colin told police that Colt did not know or speak Russian and that the boy claimed he had stopped using Discord because “too many people kept hacking his account.”
The father added that his son “feared that someone would use his information for nefarious purposes,” the report said.
Police shelved the case after failing to prove any threats or clearly link Colt or Collin to the Discord accounts.
About 15 months later, Colt allegedly opened fire at Apalachee High School, killing two students and two teachers and sending nine people to the hospital.
The Jackson County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigations Division did not respond to a message seeking comment.
