CNN obtains audio of police questioning school shooting suspect in 2023
CNN obtains audio of police questioning school shooting suspect in 2023
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00:00breaking news in the Georgia school shooting investigation. CNN is just
00:04obtaining the audio of the sheriff's questioning the alleged 14 year old
00:08shooter last year before he allegedly carried out yesterday's mass shooting
00:12at his high school in Georgia, which he killed four people and injured nine
00:16more. Here's what he said when investigators asked him about tips at
00:21the time last year in school that he was allegedly threatening a school
00:24shooting.
00:25Have you heard anybody on this court when you were using it? Say something
00:31like that. Remember, like at that time? Yeah. Um, I don't think so. I mean,
00:36I'm not trying to get anybody came up, but this is some serious stuff. Oh,
00:40he knows how serious it is. Trust me. I'd hate to. You know, my boss was
00:45leaving. Like, you know, I don't know how old this information is. And if
00:48you wanna wait till Monday to follow up, I was like, I'd rather do it now
00:51because God forbid something happened. I didn't do my job. I'd feel pretty
00:57bad about this.
01:01I mean, it's just words now. It's hard to hear. God forbid something can
01:04happen. Uh, and now something has, and it has come as CNN is learning that
01:08Gray's father told investigators that he purchased the gun that was used in
01:13the killings as a holiday president present for his son. Isabel Rosales is
01:18out front.
01:18Mhm. I saw Colt in custody with handcuffs on. Um, he is cooperating
01:25with, as far as I know, still talking. They're still talking. Barrow County
01:28Sheriff Judd Smith was one of the first responders on campus yesterday. It was
01:32very nerve wracking going there, not knowing what I was about to walk into
01:36what I was about to see and what the situation was. Both he and the entire
01:39school staff are crediting the fast response from law enforcement to a new
01:43security system that was implemented at the school just one week ago. So I
01:48had 26, I think 26 alerts during the incident when it started. Within five
01:54minutes of the first alert going off, we had this suspect in custody. The
01:58system called St. Ejects works with I. D. Badges that include a panic button
02:02that teachers and staff can press in an emergency situation. It's an I. D. Card
02:07and the teachers can can alert and lock the school down. And we got multiple
02:10alerts that told us where this was going on. The 14 year old suspect
02:14spent the night behind bars at a youth detention center. But on Friday, when
02:18he makes his first court appearance, he will be charged with murder and he
02:21will be tried as an adult and uh, handled as an adult. According to a
02:26source familiar with the investigation, new details have emerged from the
02:29search of the suspect's home documents found in his bedroom, believed to be
02:34written by him referenced past school shootings, including the 2018 massacre
02:38in Parkland florida. But this wasn't the first time the suspect had a run in
02:42with law enforcement. A 2023 investigative report says that last
02:45year, the local sheriff's office received a tip from the FBI about a
02:49series of anonymous threats on the chat platform discord to quote, shoot up a
02:54middle school tomorrow. The tip included photo attachments with a
02:58profile name in russian that translated to Adam Lanza, the sandy hook shooter.
03:03The suspect and his father were both interviewed and while his father
03:06acknowledged hunting rifles existed in the home, he said his son did not have
03:10unsupervised access to them. The suspect denied making the threats to
03:14shoot up a school stating that he would never say such a thing even in a
03:18joking manner. The case was ultimately cleared because law enforcement
03:23couldn't substantiate the threats. Now we've learned gray's father told
03:27investigators he bought the air 15 for his son after that investigation and
03:32several months before he transferred into Appalachee High School and
03:36authorities are trying to figure out how the suspect managed to get that
03:38rifle into the school, especially because he was so new. He is um
03:44enrolled in school two weeks ago, 2.5 weeks ago and only been in school two
03:49days.
03:52And Aaron, we have breaking news just dropping here in the last minute that
03:57the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has arrested Colin gray age 54. That is
04:03Colt grace father in connection to this deadly shooting at Appalachee High
04:07School. Again, that is Colt grace father. He's been charged with the
04:11following four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second
04:16degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to Children. The G. B. I. Will
04:20be having a press conference here in the next half hour. So we expect to get
04:24more details and an understanding of what led them to uh these charges here
04:28very soon. And Aaron, I do want to leave you with this right here. A
04:32community united here as the sun is setting in grief. They're laying
04:38flowers, balloons, paying their respects to again, the four dead to
04:42teachers, two students at Appalachee High School and Isabel just in this,
04:46this breaking news. I mean, we're now hearing the audio, which was just so
04:50chilling of the FBI asking questions of the shooter at his prior school about
04:55these threats that that one line, God forbid something happened and I didn't
04:59do my job when that investigator said I brought him in to ask these questions
05:02now. I didn't wait over the weekend and of course, here we are. Um, are you
05:06learning anything more about, you know, Colin Gray? I mean, do we even know if
05:10he's in custody as you get all of these charges, which obviously are
05:14extremely significant, especially in the context of the fact that he gave his
05:18son this gun and he is the other voice. We hear that there in that question, he
05:23was there with his son.
05:27Right. Um, and we have stunning reporting from my colleagues, Mark
05:30Morales and Ryan Young. Um, that found that again, investigators spoke with
05:36the father with the son back in May of last year. But then about 6 to 7 months
05:41later, as a holiday or a Christmas gift, he bought this same gun that was used
05:45to carry out this attack as a gift to his son. I spoke with the sheriff
05:49earlier, who told me that anything was on the table, including possible
05:53charges against Colin Gray. Um, his father called Gray's father, who had
05:58custody of his son. And here we are hours later, and he's been charged. The
06:03biggest question again is how Colt allegedly got access to this gun, right?
06:09How it wasn't unlocked, how he managed to get it inside of the school. That is
06:14what led to these charges, and we hope to find out more from the G. B. I. Here
06:17in the next half hour. All right, well, Isabel, as you get that, of course,
06:20we're gonna come back to you as we get it. More information. Thank you very
06:23much. And I think also just important to emphasize Isabel Ryan Mike's
06:28reporting. And as she's laying that out that you hear that questioning, you
06:32hear the father brought in with his son for that questioning, and it was after
06:36that questioning since six months after when he gave his child the gun that his
06:40child then used to, uh, murder people yesterday in Georgia. I want to go to
06:45Tim Clemente now, former FBI special agent and SWAT team member Tim. Um, I
06:50just as we're hearing this audio, as I said, it is. It is hard to listen to.
06:54You heard that agent and the sheriff say, Look, I just God forbid something
06:59happened. I do my job. I want to bring you in now. I want to do this
07:02questioning. Let me play a bit more of the audio that we've obtained.
07:07You have weapons in the house. I do. Are they accessible to him? They are. I
07:12mean, there's nothing, nothing loaded, but they are down. We actually we do a
07:17lot of shooting. We do a lot of deer hunting. He shot his first deer this
07:20year. You know, so
07:24like, I'm pretty much in shop to be honest with you. Well, I'm a little
07:28pissed off to be even really honest with you. In fact, if that is what was
07:32said
07:34that that Tim that he's referring to are the threats about shooting a school
07:38that they brought in Cole Gray, the alleged shooter here to ask him about.
07:43So seven months after that conversation when they're talking, that's the father
07:46talking about his son's access to guns. Seven months after that conversation,
07:50he gives him a gun. He gives him a gun for Christmas, and that is the gun that
07:55his son used to kill people yesterday.
07:58How do you even process this?
08:02Uh, you know, Aaron, it's almost impossible to process. Obviously, the
08:06father didn't take those threats seriously, didn't consider his son as
08:10the suspect that may have made those threats. Um, the visit by the local
08:14Sheriff's Department investigators to talk to the son and the father as a 13
08:19year old kid that possibly made those threats. You would think that it might
08:22wake the father up that maybe he didn't know everything he should know about
08:26his son. And it's it's disheartening that he would be so stupid as to, you
08:32know, he says in the interview that my son does have access to weapons and,
08:37you know, they're not loaded, but he has access to them. And then he just
08:40increases that access with an additional rifle that
08:43tragically used yesterday. I mean, it is. It is really incredible. Um, you
08:49know, so you heard the investigator say, um, you know, I my supervisor said,
08:54you know, are you gonna do this today? Or do you want to wait through the
08:56weekend in terms of the questioning of this kid? Um, the alleged shooter cold
09:00who now is 14 at the time was 13 because God forbid something happened.
09:04I didn't do my job. That'd be I'd feel pretty bad about that. Um, now, you
09:08know, you hear there in the follow up, you know, the 13 year old saying, Oh,
09:15I would never make such a threat. I would never do anything. Um, you know,
09:19I know this is serious. I know. So, um, and then it just that was it. It all
09:25went away. When you hear all of this, does it make sense to you that it kind
09:28of went away? I mean, this kid then transferred to a new school. Um, I
09:33don't know what level of awareness they had about any of this history.
09:38You know, Aaron, that's the biggest question that I have is what awareness
09:41did the new school have? Did his teachers have that? Maybe this is a kid
09:45they should be looking at more closely. Now, obviously, a threat is is
09:50significant enough that it goes from the FBI to local authorities to
09:53investigate further. But it's not enough to arrest the kid because they really
09:56can't tie his fingerprints to that threat, even though it may have come
10:00from his IP address, his email address, whatever the connections were, they may
10:04not have had enough to actually charge him with anything if they were able to
10:08prove that it was his threat. But it doesn't mean you don't look more
10:11closely at the kid. As a parent, as a teacher, a school is administrators.
10:16Everyone should have been looking more closely at this kid and his behavior,
10:20and obviously they weren't. No. And I mean, I was talking to the kid who sits
10:24next to him, who was sitting next to him in algebra when he got up to leave.
10:27And she said, Well, I didn't think anything of it because he's always
10:30skipping class right already this year, one month into school. Uh, the kid who
10:34sits next to him knew that this kid had issues and problems just because of
10:37that. No other interaction. But these are things that in the context of what
10:41we of what they knew, uh, obviously should have should have stood out.