The boy accused of killing four people at Appalachee High School Wednesday was on the FBI’s radar as recent as last year. The agency confirmed late Wednesday that authorities questioned the boy and his dad last year about anonymous online threats.
Colt Gray, 14, denied to police in May 2023 he was behind internet posts that contained images of guns, warning of a school shooting.
The suspect opened fire on Wednesday at the Winder school Wednesday morning killing two teachers and two pupils, investigators say. Eight students and one teacher were injured.
He was arrested on campus and will be prosecuted as an adul
In a statement, the FBI said its National Threat Operations Center had alerted local law enforcement in May 2023 after receiving anonymous tips about “online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location and time”.
The agency said within 24 hours it determined that the threats originated in Georgia.
Sheriff’s deputies interviewed the boy and his father, who “stated he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them,” the FBI said.
The suspect denied making the online threats and officials “alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the subject.”
“At the time, there was no probable cause for an arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action on the local, state or federal levels,” the FBI added.