A person who gave his son an assault rifle that {the teenager} used to unleash a mass taking pictures at a Georgia highschool in 2024 was sentenced Thursday to fifteen years in jail.
A jury convicted Colin Grey in March on a number of expenses, together with second-degree homicide and involuntary manslaughter, over the Christmas reward of the weapon his son used within the Sept. 4, 2024, taking pictures at Apalachee Excessive Faculty.
Grey gave his son, Colt Grey, the weapon just some months after regulation enforcement got here to the Grey house as a result of {the teenager} threatened to shoot up an elementary college, in accordance with prosecutors.
The youthful Grey, now 16, was sentenced to life with out parole days earlier for the taking pictures, which left two college students and two lecturers useless. One other instructor and eight extra college students had been wounded, seven of them by gunfire.
The shooter was 14 on the time of the assault however was charged as an grownup. His trial had been scheduled to start in mid-October till he pleaded responsible with out reaching a take care of prosecutors. He declined to handle the courtroom at his personal sentencing.
{The teenager} was obsessive about mass killers, and prosecutors performed jailhouse telephone calls along with his mom by which he appeared to relish the eye the bloodbath introduced him.
Investigators mentioned he had turn into significantly fixated on the perpetrators of the 1999 Columbine Excessive Faculty in Littleton, Colorado, and the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary Faculty taking pictures in Newtown, Connecticut.
The victims of the Apalachee Excessive Faculty taking pictures had been college students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, each 14, and lecturers Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53.
A number of victims’ members of the family testified Thursday, asking that the elder Grey obtain the utmost sentence.
Aspinwall’s spouse, who can be a highschool instructor, condemned him for failing to be a “accountable gun proprietor.”
“What if one other scholar shot me in school? My youngsters would haven’t any dad and mom as a result of we had been each lecturers that aspired to assist college students be taught, not be on the entrance line,” she mentioned.
Maria Schermerhorn, Mason’s mom, rejected the elder Grey’s protection that he was a newly single father, noting that she, too, had as soon as been a single teenage mom.
“Parenting is tough. Parenting alone is even more durable. I do know that as a result of I lived it … however there’s a world of distinction between struggling to mother or father and refusing to mother or father,” she mentioned.
“At the same time as a younger single mom, I understood one thing that Mr. Grey apparently didn’t … I couldn’t management each alternative my youngsters would ultimately make, however I used to be chargeable for controlling what I put into their fingers,” she added.
The shooter’s father didn’t make of his personal and confirmed little emotion because the victims’ households spoke.
Brian Hobbs, one of many elder Grey’s attorneys, argued his consumer shouldn’t be severely sentenced for his son’s crimes, and requested that he obtain 10 years in jail.
“That isn’t lenience,” Hobbs mentioned. “Ten years in a Georgia jail for a person who by no means meant to hurt a single human being is among the many most extreme sentences ever imposed on a mother or father in American historical past for the act of the kid.”
Hobbs additionally steered that the youthful Grey’s mom, Marcee Grey, bore extra duty than his consumer for fostering the teenager’s obsession with college shooters. Marcee Grey has not been charged in reference to the taking pictures.
Prosecutor Brad Smith mentioned the elder Grey was “convicted of ignoring a considerable and unjustifiable danger” and that “the courtroom wants to take a look at the character of the chance he ignored” by sentencinghim to the utmost.
“This was the chance he was ignoring-that there could be a mass taking pictures of kids at a school-and he gave his son the precise software he would wish to perform this,” mentioned Smith. “He’s the rationale 4 individuals are useless, seven had been injured, and numerous others had been traumatized. And he’s the rationale a 16-year-old boy was sentenced two days in the past to the remainder of his life in jail.”
It is a creating story. Please examine again for updates.
