Georgia school shooting charges explained

(NewsNation) — A father and son both face charges in connection with Wednesday’s shooting at a Georgia high school, but only one of them is accused of firing the rounds that killed four people.

Police arrested 14-year-old Colt Gray and his father, Colin Gray, in connection with the deaths. Fourteen-year-old students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53 all died in the shooting at Apalachee High School, about 50 miles from Atlanta.

Both the teenager and his father made brief court appearances Friday in a Barrow County courtroom, where the judge explained the charges and their potential penalties. They will remain in custody.

It’s the second high-profile case in which prosecutors have charged the parent of an alleged shooter. On the heels of convictions in the Michigan Oxford School shooting, charges filed this week beg the question: Who should be held accountable — and for what — when a child commits a serious crime?

What is the accused shooter charged with?

Colt Gray is charged as an adult with four counts of felony murder — one count for each of the people killed in the shooting.

Felony murder isn’t just murder that’s charged as a felony, though. It’s a separate offense with its own benchmarks and penalties. Prosecutors use the charge when someone dies while the accused person is committing, attempting to commit or aiding in another crime. In Georgia, that can include burglary, arson, rape, kidnapping, aggravated assault and cruelty to children.

In this case, investigators say the victims died while the alleged shooter was committing aggravated assault, court records show. Felony murder can also apply to cases involving a defendant (the person charged with the crime) who is also accused of having a weapon on school property, according to Georgia law.

Unlike first-degree murder, prosecutors in a felony murder case don’t need to prove the accused person meant to kill anyone, NewsNation legal contributor Sara Azari said.

“You don’t need the intent to kill because you have committed another felony,” she said. “So that the felony replaces the intent requirement.”

Each count of felony murder would typically carry a maximum possible sentence of death or life in prison, Judge Currie Mingledorff said. The alleged shooter won’t face the death penalty, however, since he is younger than

Prosecutors may file additional charges against the 14-year-old, Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith said. Future charges would likely stem from nonfatal injuries others suffered during the shooting, he said.

What charges does the alleged shooter’s dad face?

The teenager’s father, Colin Gray, is charged with involuntary manslaughter, second-degree murder and cruelty to children. An affidavit included with the warrant for his arrest alleges he was criminally negligent by knowingly providing a firearm to his son, who was a threat to himself and others. That alleged negligence caused the child victims — both 14 years old — “excessive physical pain” amounting to cruelty toward children, the affidavit alleges.

The alleged cruelty led to the students’ deaths, resulting in a pair of second-degree murder charges, prosecutors said in court filings.

They similarly allege the father was acting recklessly by giving his son access to a weapon, resulting in four counts of involuntary manslaughter.

Second-degree murder is punishable by a maximum of 30 years in prison, while involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children both are punishable by up to 10 years.

Why is this case significant on a larger scale?

This is the second high-profile school shooting case in which prosecutors have charged a parent of an alleged shooter.

Earlier this year, Jennifer and James Crumbly became the first parents in the U.S. to be convicted of involuntary manslaughter for a shooting they didn’t commit.

Their son, 17-year-old Ethan Crumbley, is serving a life sentence for the 2021 shooting that killed four people at Michigan’s Oxford High School.

Prosecutors said the parents failed to safely store their gun and could have prevented the shooting by removing the then-15-year-old from school after they learned about a worrisome drawing he created hours before the shooting.

On the heels of such a novel and nationally gripping case, the public may be too eager to blame the suspected Georgia shooter’s parents, Azari said.

“I don’t know that we have a similar set of facts here,” she said. “We just don’t know enough about the role of the parents in this particular shooting.”

The Crumbley parents bought their son the gun and took him to a shooting range to try it. The boy’s attorneys also said his parents were neglectful of their teenage son and argued he was “spiraling” at the time of the shooting.  

If appeals in either the Oxford or Georgia shootings were to make it to the U.S. Supreme Court, those rulings could inform how future cases are prosecuted, Azari said.

“We could start getting precedent on ‘Where do we draw the line?’” Azari said. “Is it enough that the parent allows access to their guns and then somebody’s killed or do we need more egregious facts like a Crumbley? Or is it that they should not be at all vicariously liable for their son’s actions?”