WINDER, Ga. — A person who gifted his 14-year-old son an assault rifle that he then used to unleash a mass taking pictures at a Georgia highschool was sentenced Thursday to fifteen years in jail.
A jury in March convicted the person, Colin Grey, on a number of fees, together with second-degree homicide and involuntary manslaughter, over the Christmas reward his son used within the Sept. 4, 2024, taking pictures at Apalachee Excessive Faculty.
In rendering his sentence, Decide Nicholas Primm stated he needed to measure Grey’s failure to behave towards the crimes dedicated by his son.
“I don’t get to condemn with ardour. I’ve the practically unimaginable process of sentencing you with out ardour, regardless of the immeasurable heartache that you just’ve brought on,” Primm stated. “On September 4, 2024, lives and households have been endlessly altered.”
Grey gave the weapon to his son, Colt Grey, even when a couple of months earlier legislation enforcement had come to the Grey house as a result of {the teenager} had threatened to shoot up an elementary faculty, in keeping with prosecutors.
“The burden of your crimes is tethered and tied to the acts of another person, your son,” Primm stated. “Two situations: you fail the identical method in each. You fail to get Colt counseling. You fail to take away the weapons from the home.”
The youthful Grey, now 16, was sentenced to life with out parole for the taking pictures, which left two college students and two lecturers lifeless. One other instructor and eight extra college students have 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 together with his mom during which he appeared to relish the eye the bloodbath introduced him.
Investigators stated he had turn out to be 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 have 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 pupil shot me at college? My youngsters would haven’t any dad and mom as a result of we have been each lecturers that aspired to assist college students study, not be on the entrance line,” she stated.
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 difficult. 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 dad or mum and refusing to dad or mum,” she stated.
“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 kids would finally make, however I used to be accountable for controlling what I put into their fingers,” she added.
The shooter’s father 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’s not lenience,” Hobbs stated. “Ten years in a Georgia jail for a person who by no means supposed to hurt a single human being is among the many most extreme sentences ever imposed on a dad or mum in American historical past for the act of the kid.”
Hobbs additionally advised that the youthful Grey’s mom, Marcee Grey, bore extra duty than his consumer for fostering the teenager’s obsession with faculty shooters. Marcee Grey has not been charged in reference to the taking pictures.
Prosecutor Brad Smith stated the elder Grey was “convicted of ignoring a considerable and unjustifiable threat” and that “the court docket wants to take a look at the character of the chance he ignored” by sentencing him to the utmost.
“This was the chance he was ignoring-that there could be a mass taking pictures of youngsters at a school-and he gave his son the precise software he would want to perform this,” stated Smith. “He’s the explanation 4 persons are lifeless, seven have been injured, and numerous others have been traumatized. And he’s the explanation a 16-year-old boy was sentenced two days in the past to the remainder of his life in jail.”
