Note to reader: The headline of this story has been changed to emphasize the similarities between the July 13 Trump assassination attempt and the Sept. 4 Georgia school shooting. Both entailed stunning security failures, including officers searching for the shooter for some 30 minutes before the attacks.
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Washington Post has published an investigation into the Sept. 4 Georgia school shooting, unearthing shocking evidence that law enforcement likely could have stopped 14-year-old Colt Gray from killing two students and two teachers—had investigators done their jobs correctly.
Along with stunning security failures leading up to the day of the shooting, the Post also revealed that local school resource officers searched for Gray for some 30 minutes before his attack—similar to how law enforcement was searching for Thomas Crooks for some 30 minutes before his July 13 assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
The Post’s Oct. 3 investigation also included more information about a tip the FBI received in 2023 about Gray making school-shooting threats on the online gaming platform, Discord. After Gray’s shooting last month, the FBI admitted that Gray had been on its radar—but insisted that there was “no probable cause for arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action” against the teenager before his shooting spree.
But according to the Post, law enforcement could have likely arrested Gray—or at least investigated him further instead of prematurely closing their case—had they looked into his threats more thoroughly.
WaPo published a mind-bending investigation into last month's Georgia school shooting.
The FBI admitted last month that the shooter was on its radar, but insisted there was no evidence to take further action.
1. HOWEVER, law enforcement DID likely have evidence to arrest the… pic.twitter.com/E8nFqhscbZ— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) October 16, 2024
Indeed, the Post said it reviewed images that Gray posted on his Discord account, and that “the carpet, wall color and trim in the photos shared by the Discord user appear consistent with images from online real estate listings that show the interior of the house Colt lived in at the time.”
However, Jackson County Sheriff’s officers never compared the Discord pictures with Gray’s home when it conducted its investigation, which was based on the FBI’s tip. Nor did they compare the firearms in the Gray household with those pictured on Colt’s Discord, the Post reported. Instead, they accepted Gray’s word that he didn’t make the threats, and that he deleted his Discord.
Had they compared the photos from Gray’s Discord with his home and firearms, they may have determined that was indeed responsible for making the school-shooting threats, according to the Post.
The reason for the local sheriff’s lack of investigation is stunning: The images were on an investigators’ phone when he visited the Gray household last year, but he couldn’t figure out how to open them, according to the Post.
“[Deputy Daniel] Miller conducted the interview without having seen the most critical evidence — screenshots of the Discord chat and those photos of the guns. He would later note in his report that the evidence was in an email attachment that he couldn’t figure out how to open on his phone while at the house … Then he closed the case, without having asked to compare the images posted online with Colin’s guns or to see inside the home,” the Post reported.
“Making terroristic threats against a school is a felony in Georgia. If the 13-year-old had been charged, experts said, a court could have prohibited him from living in a home where he had access to a firearm.”
Sheriff Janis Mangum told the Post that he still doesn’t think there was enough evidence to sustain a charge against Gray. But patrolman Justin Elliot, who was involved in the investigation, reportedly said that they should have done more.
“In hindsight, it was possible to bring those photos to the dad and say, ‘Do you recognize these?’” Elliot told the Post. “I do think it could have been done differently.”
The sheriffs’ bungled investigation wasn’t its only failure; investigators also failed to notify local schools about Gray’s threat. This is despite the fact that the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office told the FBI that it had notified local schools.
Along with the sheriffs’ failures, the Post also revealed another stunning mishap by local school resource officers.
According to the Post, on the morning of his shooting, Gray asked a disturbing question to a teacher about how the school responds to active shooters. The teacher also reportedly noticed Gray’s “unusually heavy bag”—which was concealing his rifle.
The teacher notified other staff, and resource officers rushed to find Gray, who had signed out of class to go to the bathroom. However, another student with the same last name also signed out of class around the same time.
“School resource officers, alerted to the threatening comments, converged on that bathroom and ordered ‘Colt Gray’ to come out, the two people said, but the wrong student appeared. The officers didn’t realize their mistake until after they escorted him back to the front office,” the Post reported.
Gray’s shooting began about 30 minutes later. It’s still not clear what happened between the time school resource officers started searching for him, and when he began firing.
Colt and his father, Colin Gray—who allowed his son to have access to firearms, even after the initial school-shooting threats—both face murder charges. Colin appeared in court for a preliminary hearing Wednesday, while the son is set to have a hearing on Dec. 4.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
