BARROW COUNTY, Ga. — The 14-year-old suspect accused of killing four people in a shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County had previously been investigated by the Jackson County Sheriff's Office after an FBI tip back in 2023, the sheriff said.
Two students and two teachers were killed Wednesday morning, with nine people having been hospitalized, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The agency identified the suspect as 14-year-old Colt Gray, a student at Apalachee High. Gray, who was taken into custody, will be charged with murder and tried as an adult, officials said.
In a statement Wednesday evening, FBI Atlanta and the Jackson County Sheriff's Office said in May 2023, the FBI's National Threat Operations Center had received several anonymous tips regarding online threats containing photos of guns in a threat to commit a school shooting. The time and location were unknown.
The FBI determined the post originated in Georgia and contacted the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff's office then located a suspect, a 13-year-old boy, and interviewed him and his father. Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum and FBI Atlanta confirmed that the teen boy from the 2023 investigation was Gray.
At the time, the father said that though he had hunting guns in the house, his son did not have "unsupervised access" to them. The boy also denied making the online threats.
The Jackson County Sheriff's Office alerted local schools to continue to monitor him.
"At that time, there was no probable cause for arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action on the local, state, or federal levels," the statement said.
On Wednesday morning, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith had said authorities were looking into how Gray obtained a weapon and got it into school.