The Apalachee High School Shooter is 14. He's Being Tried as an Adult. Does That Make Sense?

Image by Sergei Tokmakov, Esq. https://Terms.Law from Pixabay

The news hit with a gut punch. It always does

“Oh God, no,” I said. “Not again.” 

But yes, again. On a Wednesday morning, just as kids all over the U.S. are reacclimating to a new school year, at a high school in Appalachee, Georgia the unthinkable happens.

No matter how often it happens, it’s always unthinkable.

This time, two teachers and two kids dead. Nine others in hospitals. Cable news videos of scenes that are sickening for their familiarity: a campus surrounded by police cars and emergency vehicles; the football field where students are herded to hopeful safety. 

Frantic parents. Kids’ faces blank with horror. A new vortex of trauma radiating outward in a pall descending over the entire nation. Shock. Grief. Outrage. 

Helplessness. 

And fury. Fury that this is happening again. Kids and teachers mowed down in what should be — what used to be — the safe haven of a school campus.

Where to direct that fury?

This time, the shooter is a 14-year-old boy. By all accounts, a quiet kid, new to the town, with a mop of blonde hair.

And an AR-platform-style rifle.

In May of 2023, the kid and his dad were called in for questioning by the Jackson County sheriff’s office in response to anonymous tips received by the FBI. 

There had been threats made on Discord. With pictures of guns. The kid — 13 at the time and still in middle school — denied posting the threats, denied even having a Discord account. His father said there were guns in the house but the boy didn’t have unsupervised access to them. 

In the recording of that interview, the father expresses anger his son is being accused of such a thing. He said his son was bullied and “called gay” at school. 

Without enough specificity to the threats and lacking further evidence, no charges were filed. The matter was essentially dropped.

Seven months later, the father bought his boy a rifle for Christmas. Reportedly the same rifle the kid used to murder his teachers and classmates on September 4.

When it comes to violent juvenile offenders, Georgia law is clear

That doesn’t mean it’s logical.

The website for a Georgia law firm specializing in juvenile justice explains that anyone 17 and over is considered an adult for purposes of criminal prosecution. 

Yet anyone under 13 can’t be criminally prosecuted because “a child under the age of 13 cannot form the requisite criminal intent to commit a delinquent act.” A child under 13 can’t be convicted of a crime, only determined to be “unruly or delinquent.”

However, juveniles 13 and over who commit certain violent crimes — murder, voluntary manslaughter, rape, and others — will be tried as adults in criminal court.

Not “can” — “will.” No waffling by a tender-hearted DA allowed. 

Colt Gray, the shooter, had a rough childhood

His parents went through a tumultuous divorce. Neighbors and the people who bought the house the Grays sold in Statham, Georgia have come forward with troubling stories about chaos in the Gray family home. 

In those accounts, Colt’s father Collin is depicted as unpredictable, angry, possibly abusive. 

Other reports reveal that Colt’s mother Marcee has a record dating back to 2007 and has been prosecuted in three Georgia counties. Charges include domestic violence, drug possession, property damage, and DUI.

After the marital split, two younger siblings stayed with their mother. Colt stayed with his dad. They moved to Apalachee not long before the school year started.

Criminal adult or a kid with mental illness?

It was Marcee, Colt’s mom, who reportedly called Apalachee High School shortly before the shooting, warning of “an extreme emergency.”

Her sister, Colt’s aunt, told a relative that he was having “suicidal and homicidal thoughts.” She has also stated that Colt was “begging” for mental health help “for months” and that “adults around him failed him.”

And now four lives have ended and multiple other lives are in ruins.

Including Colt Gray’s. 

There are no words sufficient to express the anguish and grief his actions have caused. Such agony is, again, unspeakable.

And again, familiar. School shootings have become a horrific template for the projection of rage, pain, or hate by an unhinged individual who believes he (it’s always a he) has no access to any better options, but who does have access to a military-grade weapon.

Does it serve justice to treat Colt Gray as an adult?

According to the apparent logic of Georgia law, in the perhaps 18 months since he turned 14, Colt Gray has gone from a child without “requisite criminal intent” to an adult offender, as fully responsible for the four counts of murder he’s charged with as his 54-year-old father is for the multiple counts of involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder with which he’s been charged. 

If, and most probably when, Colt Gray is convicted, his maximum sentence could be life in prison, with or without the possibility of parole. 

At his first court hearing, the judge mistakenly informed Colt that his crimes could be punishable by death. The judge later called Colt back to correct the error. Thanks to a Supreme Court decision, Georgia no longer executes kids.

But it does lead the nation in juvenile lifers. 

Lifers with no option for rehabilitation. Kids who have essentially been deemed beyond redemption or repair. Warehoused for life, at a cost to taxpayers, if you care about that, over ten times that of public education, with no option to contribute to society whatever they might, in time, be able to.

I get that society needs protection from violent individuals, including violent teens.

But is this the best we can do?