Victims recall horror of school shooting in trial against suspect's father

WINDER, Ga. (CN) — Multiple students who were shot and injured during a mass shooting at a Georgia high school in 2024 testified Tuesday about their physical and mental turmoil in the trial against the teen suspect’s father.

Colin Gray faces 29 charges, including second-degree murder, manslaughter, cruelty to children and reckless conduct, in connection with the Sept. 4 attack at Apalachee High School where his 16-year-old son, Colt Gray, is accused of opening fire on students and staff. Two 14-year-old students and two teachers were killed. Several others were injured.

“We’re kids!” 16-year-old Natalie Griffith recalled screaming at Colt Gray as she passed him being handcuffed on the ground while police evacuated her and other students out of the classroom he opened fire in. Griffith was shot in the arm and the wrist, leaving her with limited hand mobility and unable to tie her own shoes, she testified.

Each of the students who were in Cassandra Ryan’s algebra class that day and survived testified about what they witnessed and how it affected them physically and mentally. It was the same classroom where Christian Angulo was killed.

Sixteen-year-old Taylor Jones said she was life flighted out of the school and is still recovering from spending months in the hospital and undergoing multiple surgeries for a gun shot wound to the leg. She testified that the injury forced her to miss an entire school year and made her give up playing volleyball and other sports.

“There was blood everywhere on the ground,” another student, Brittany Rubio-Rubio, testified.

Just freshman at the time, many said they were unable to return to school for months and suffer from severe anxiety and paranoia as a result.

Jaxson Beaver, another 16-year-old student, said he misses being apart of the school’s marching band, but was unable to return to school after three months of trying.

“Every time I went back, I thought something bad was gonna happen,” Beaver said.

The students who caught a glimpse of Colt Gray entering the classroom door with the firearm all testified that they had no idea who he was, underscoring his persistent absences from school.

Prosecutors said Colt Gray had only attended five days of school that year and missed an entire year of school in 2023. Before enrolling at Apalachee High School, the boy had attended seven different schools in a four year period, according to Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith.

Prosecutors claim that a lack of a stable environment and education was just part of Colin Gray’s extreme parental neglect.

He is accused of gifting his minor son the assault rifle he used in the attack, even after authorities showed up to his house in May 2023 to investigate online school shooting threats traced to Colt Gray’s computer. Two years earlier, the Department of Children and Family Services appeared at the home after Colt Gray searched “abuse” and “how to kill your father.”

Instead of complying with officers’ orders to lock away any firearms in the home and keep them out of his son’s reach, prosecutors said Colin Gray let him keep the assault rifle next to his bed. He later bought his son a tactical vest, ammunition and sights for the weapon and larger-capacity magazines for the rifle at his son’s request, according to investigators.

When investigators arrived at the home after Colt Gray’s detainment at the scene of the crime, they discovered a “shrine” on his wall to Nikolas Cruz, who was convicted of the deadliest school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Without any prompting, Colin Gray told the responding officers, “I knew it,” when his daughter texted him about her middle school going into lockdown for a shooting at the neighboring Apalachee high school.

Defense attorneys argue Colin Gray is innocent because he didn’t know his son planned to carry out the shooting and that he was also deceived by his son’s “double life.”

“The evidence will show a teenager who is struggling mentally, a teenager who was deceptive — a teenager who hid his true intentions from everyone,” his attorney, Brian Hobbs, told jurors during opening statements on Monday.

The trial is expected to last three weeks.

Colt Gray is being held at a juvenile facility in Gainesville, Georgia, while awaiting his own trial that has yet to be scheduled.

The teen was indicted on 55 charges including felony murder, malice murder, aggravated battery, cruelty to children in the first degree and aggravated assault. He is being prosecuted as an adult and if convicted, faces life in prison.

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