The father of Colt Gray, the 14-year-old suspect charged in the killings of four people at Apalachee High School, was arrested Thursday, Georgia law enforcement officials said.

Colin Gray, 54, was charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. An investigation is underway to determine whether the AR-style weapon was purchased by the boy’s father and given to him as a gift, sources with knowledge of the investigation told CBS News.

“These charges are based on the fact that Mr. Gray knowingly allowed his son Colt to possess a gun,” Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey announced at a press conference Thursday night.

Wednesday’s shooting left 14-year-old students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo dead, as well as teachers Richard Aspinwall and Christina Irimie. Nine other people were injured in the shooting — two teachers and seven students, officials said Thursday night. There was some good news in Thursday’s update, as authorities said “all nine will make a full recovery and be released from the hospital.”

Colt Gray is being tried as an adult and appeared in court Friday morning for a preliminary hearing.

Previous warnings

A Jackson County, Georgia, police report obtained by Yahoo News shows that users of the social media platform Discord contacted the FBI in May 2023 and warned that someone was threatening to shoot up an unnamed high school in the area.

Hours after Colt Gray allegedly killed four people and wounded nine others at Apalachee High School in Georgia on Wednesday, the FBI’s Atlanta office said it had received anonymous tips and that Jackson County authorities were considering Gray as a suspect.

“The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office located a possible victim, a 13-year-old male, and interviewed him and his father,” the FBI wrote. “The father stated he had shotguns in his home, but the victim did not have unsupervised access to them. The victim denied making the threats online.”

Researchers spoke to the Grays in May 2023

Acting on tips from Discord users, authorities went to the Grays’ home and spoke with both Colt, who was 13 at the time and a student at Jefferson Middle School in Georgia, and his father, Colin, the report said. Colin denied knowing what Discord was, and Colt said he had deactivated his Discord account months earlier. Discord is a free messaging app primarily used in the gaming community.

“Colt expressed concern that someone was accusing him of threatening to shoot up a school, and stated that he would never say something like that, even in a humorous way,” the report said. “Colt stated that he stopped using Discord because too many people kept hacking his account and he was afraid that someone would use his information for nefarious purposes.”

The tip the FBI received about the Discord account said it was created in April 2023, after Colt said he had deleted his account. Screenshots of the Discord account showed the username was in Russian, and the translation of the Russian letters spelled out the name Lanza. Authorities believed this referred to Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old who committed the December 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

“Due to the inconsistent nature of the information the FBI has received, the claim that Colt or Colin is the user behind the Discord account that made the threat cannot be substantiated,” the report concluded. “This matter will be resolved exceptionally.”

“The threats were generic and not specific to a location or time,” a spokesperson for the FBI Atlanta division told Yahoo News on Thursday. “At this time, we have no further information to share other than what was stated in our statement on our social media channels.”

New costs

While there isn’t much precedent for charging parents of minors involved in shootings, Michael Lawlor, an attorney and associate professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven, pointed to the April conviction of Jennifer and James Crumbley, whose son, Ethan, killed four students at Oxford High School in Michigan in 2021.

Lawlor said authorities had to consider two key elements when determining whether to charge Gray’s parents with the Apalachee shooting.

“If it can be proven that the 14-year-old did in fact have unfettered access to the AR platform weapon used in the shooting (which would mean they lied to investigators in 2023) and if it can be proven that the parents were aware of his murderous messages, then a conviction would certainly be possible,” Lawlor told Yahoo News ahead of the announcement that Colin Gray had been charged.

The Crumbleys were accused of failing to properly store their newly purchased gun at home, as Ethan later brought the gun to school, and failing to take appropriate action when their son began to show signs of mental decline, even after they were shown a violent and disturbing drawing Ethan had made.

The Crumbleys were the first parents to be convicted of a mass shooting at a U.S. school involving their child. They were sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in prison.

Under the law, someone found guilty of involuntary manslaughter can face up to 10 years in prison.

President Biden raised the issue Thursday afternoon in Westby, Wisconsin.

“There are too many people who have access to guns who shouldn’t have access to them. Let’s demand that guns be stored securely. I know I keep mine locked up. How can you not have an assault rifle, a gun in your home, unlocked and your child knowing where it is? You have to hold parents accountable if they give their child access to these guns,” Biden said. Authorities have not said where Gray got the AR-style rifle he allegedly used in the shootings.