CNN
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The father of the 14-year-old suspect in the Apalachee High School shooting is facing two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the Georgia attack that left four people dead this week – charges that push the limits of a parent’s legal responsibility for a child’s alleged firearms offense.

The case against 54-year-old Colin Gray is only the second time in America that a parent has been charged in connection with a mass shooting by a minor, said former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin. The charges – including four counts of manslaughter and eight counts of child abuse, with more possible – are the most serious ever brought against the parent of an alleged school shooter.

Each count against Gray accuses the father of “giving a firearm to Colt Gray while knowing he was a threat to himself and others,” according to his arrest warrant affidavit in Barrow County. Colin Gray has not confessed; Colin Gray has pleaded not guilty to four murder charges, and more charges are expected against him.

“The key point in the case against the father will be the recklessness, the predictability of how he handled the gun toward his son,” Toobin told CNN on Thursday evening.

If convicted on all counts, Colin Gray faces up to 180 years in prison, District Judge Currie Mingledorff said during a hearing on Friday.

Gray’s case will focus on the father and son’s interactions with police more than a year before Wednesday’s shooting, the teen’s access to the gun used in the attack and what the father knew about the boy’s mental state, experts told CNN, painting a picture of the teen’s turbulent family life.

In May 2023, law enforcement questioned Colt and his father about online threats to “commit a school shooting,” according to the FBI. Colt denied making the threats at the time, and his father told authorities his son did not have unsupervised access to hunting weapons in the house.

Just seven months later, the suspect’s father purchased the firearm allegedly used in the mass shooting as a Christmas gift for his son, two law enforcement sources told CNN. The AR-15-style rifle was purchased at a local gun store as a Christmas gift, one source said.

The charges against Gray come just five months after the parents of the teenager who killed four students in a 2021 school massacre in Oxford, Michigan, were each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison for manslaughter.

James and Jennifer Crumbley were the first parents to be held criminally responsible for a school shooting committed by their child. The country continues to grapple with school shootings and school shootings in places that are normally considered safe.

There are already striking similarities between the cases in Georgia and Michigan: In both shootings, four people were killed and others injured at the school after the teenagers’ parents gave them the deadly weapon as a gift.

The case against Gray is also similar to the Crumbleys in that all of them involve “putting a gun in the hands of a child,” CNN legal expert and criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson said Thursday.

“The Michigan case showed the world and the country that as a parent, if you are in possession of a firearm, you are responsible for your son’s actions,” former New York prosecutor and criminal defense attorney Bernarda Villalona told CNN.

“You have to be aware of what your son is capable of, what he is going through, what access he has to deadly firearms.”

Despite the similarities between the Michigan and Georgia cases, there are also some key differences. And because the investigation in Georgia is still in its early stages, experts say it’s too early to say exactly how a criminal case against Gray might play out and compare to that of the Crumbleys.

Like the Crumbleys, Gray is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter. He also faces second-degree murder, a far more serious offense.

The second-degree murder charge applies to the two 14-year-olds Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn killed on Wednesday, but not to the two murdered teachers Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie, the Barrow County District Attorney said on Friday.

“Second-degree murder is different in Georgia than in other states. It’s a fairly new charge and it specifically targets second-degree cruelty to children,” said District Attorney Brad Smith.

“If you commit second-degree cruelty to children that results in death, that is second-degree murder.”

“I don’t want to send a message,” Smith added of the allegations against Gray. “I’m just trying to use the tools at my disposal to prosecute people for the crimes they commit.”

At Crumbley’s trial, prosecutors argued that the parents acted “grossly negligently” by allowing their teenage son, Ethan Crumbley, access to the gun he used and ignoring signs of his son’s deteriorating mental health.

As in the Crumbley trials, the Gray case would likely examine whether the Georgia shooting was reasonably foreseeable and whether the father acted recklessly and negligently, CNN experts said.

And given the questions police asked him in May 2023 – more than a year before the shooting – it’s hard to argue that Gray was unaware of safety concerns about his son, said Karen McDonald, who prosecuted Ethan and his parents.

The key to the Georgia case will be that Colt allegedly received the gun just months after his father was made aware of the alleged online threats, McDonald said.

“It’s a deadly weapon. And it’s a 14-year-old young man. The first question has to be: Where did he get that weapon? And the details that are coming to light are very disturbing,” McDonald said.

The fact that the father gave his son a firearm violates state law, Villalona said: “In Georgia, it is illegal to give a firearm to a minor” – although there are exceptions for hunting, at shooting ranges and at home with the permission of an adult.

“This becomes a charge of gross negligence: the extent to which you put a firearm in your son’s hands despite possibly knowing the dangers involved and how your son will behave,” said legal expert Jackson.

Gray’s actions represented “complete and utter irresponsibility,” said Nick Suplina, senior vice president of law and policy at the gun violence prevention group Everytown for Gun Safety.

The Crumbley cases showed that “parents can – and should – be held accountable when they disregard public safety,” he said. “It should have sent a clear message to people like Mr Gray, but unfortunately for the victims and their families, he failed to heed that message to prevent a tragedy.”

Gray did not ask for bail at a hearing Friday, where he was represented by a public defender. Colt’s attorney did not ask for bail at a hearing Friday. CNN is working to identify and reach both attorneys.

Prosecutors will also investigate how much Colin Gray knew about his son’s mental state when he allegedly bought him the firearm, experts told CNN.

When authorities searched Colt’s bedroom, they found documents they believe he had written with references to previous school shootings, including references to the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told CNN.

It is unclear whether Colt’s father even knew about the documents.

In Michigan, the Crumbley trials centered on a crucial meeting between school officials, Ethan and his parents the morning of the shooting, after the teen left disturbing writing on a math worksheet. The school recommended that parents immediately remove him from class and get him mental health treatment, but they refused, prosecutors and school officials said. About two hours after Ethan was sent back to class, he took the gun from his backpack and opened fire at the school.

It’s too early to say whether the elder Gray will face similar legal scrutiny as in the Crumbley cases, as it remains unclear exactly what the father knew leading up to this week’s shooting, former FBI Director Andrew McCabe told CNN Thursday night.

“In the (Michigan) case, there was a situation – a very rare situation – where immediately before the shooting, the parents knew two things: One, that their son had a gun that they had given him; and two, that he was suffering from mental health issues at school and had these very violent writings and comments in his notebook,” McCabe said.

In the Georgia case, “as far as we know, there is not the same kind of temporal connection between what the father knew in the days and hours before the shooting,” he said.

In the trial against Gray, “everything will depend on what the father knew about his son,” Villalona said, adding that she expects a similar outcome to the Crumbley case.

Regardless of whether the Georgia suspect’s father is held criminally responsible for the Apalachee High School shooting, parents must do more to prevent their children from getting into the hands of firearms, said McDonald, the Michigan prosecutor.

“It takes less than 10 seconds to install a cable lock – 10 seconds that would prevent tragedies like this,” she said, “and responsible gun owners know that.”