Authorities were ‘actively looking’ for Georgia shooting suspect after a warning call from his mom the morning of the attack

By Dalia Faheid, Ashley R. Williams, Alisha Ebrahimji and Jamiel Lynch, CNN

(CNN) — On the morning of the shooting at a Winder, Georgia, high school that left four people dead, authorities were “actively looking” for the teenage suspect after the school received a warning call from his mom – but there was a mix-up and they weren’t able to get to him fast enough, according to the Barrow County sheriff.

Before last week’s mass shooting at Apalachee High School, Colt Gray, 14, apologized to his mother, Marcee Gray, in an alarming, cryptic text that prompted the mother to warn the school that something could be wrong.

“I’m sorry, mom,” the text read.

The mother then called the school and asked administrators to check on her son. That’s when authorities started searching for Colt Gray, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told CNN affiliate WXIA.

“She did speak to someone in the school, and we were actively looking for him,” Smith said. “I am not aware of her saying he is going to do this, or he has planned this, but there were some messages back and forth,” the sheriff added.

A resource officer went to look for the boy, but there was another student in the same class with “almost identically the same name,” and both he and Colt Gray weren’t inside the classroom at the time, according to the sheriff.

“He went to the bathroom with a student that has the almost same name – that’s who they think we’re looking for,” Smith said.

Smith said the officers thought they had caught up to Colt Gray in time, but they were actually speaking to the other student. “As we’re trying to figure out what’s going on, the shooting starts,” Smith told WXIA.

Authorities allege Colt fired an AR-15-style rifle inside the high school, killing two teachers and two students. Nine others who were injured – eight students and one teacher – are expected to recover, authorities said.

Newly obtained emergency recordings and dispatch records from the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office capture the chaos and panic that unfolded both inside the school as an active shooter was reported and outside it as worried parents received panicked texts from their teenagers.

The deadly attack on September 4 marked the 45th school shooting in 2024 and the deadliest US school shooting since the March 2023 rampage at The Covenant School in Nashville.

Colt Gray, who authorities say confessed to the Winder high school attack, is charged with four counts of felony murder and will be tried as an adult. His attorney, Alfonso Kraft Jr., declined to comment Wednesday when reached by phone.

His father, Colin Gray, has been charged with two counts of second-degree murder, four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children after authorities accused him of knowingly allowing his son to have a weapon, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. CNN has reached out to Colin Gray’s attorneys.

‘We have an active shooter at Apalachee High School’

On the morning of the shooting, a 10-minute call was placed from Marcee Gray’s phone to the school at 9:50 a.m. ET, the Washington Post reported.

Colt Gray had left his Algebra 1 class around 9:45 a.m. ET, student Lyela Sayarath, who was sitting next to him in class, previously told CNN.

She said a person who later came to the class looking for Colt Gray confused him with another student. “An administrator comes in asking for the kid that sits next to me but mistakes him for … my friend,” Lyela said.

The first call for the shooting came in from a “RapidSOS” device at 10:22 a.m. ET, computer-aided dispatch reports released by Barrow County on Friday show.

“Active shooter!” an officer is heard yelling in one audio clip while speaking with a dispatcher, who repeats the phrase back to him. Another officer can be heard responding calmly, “Correct. We have an active shooter at Apalachee High School.”

Two minutes later, authorities had the suspect’s name as “Colt” and one student was dead, according to the reports.

At 10:30 a.m., the suspect was “in custody, not injured,” the reports show. Fifteen minutes later, the reports show one person was dead in a hallway and three were dead in another hallway.

An officer, sounding slightly out of breath, asks the dispatcher to “roll EMS.” She is heard confirming emergency medical services were en route to the high school.

‘I’m just worried it was him’

When a woman who identified herself as Colt’s aunt found out about the text he had sent, she made a tearful 911 call that morning just after 11:45 a.m. ET. Sobbing, she told a Barrow County 911 operator she was afraid her nephew was involved in the school shooting at Apalachee High School, according to a recording released Friday.

“My mom just called me and said that Colt texted his mom, my sister and his dad that he was sorry, and they called the school and told the counselor to go get him immediately,” the woman told the operator. “And then she said she saw that there’s been a shooting, and I’m just worried it was him.”

The woman then shared her and her sister’s phone numbers with the 911 operator, adding that she’d prefer they call his mom first “because I’ve been trying to get through to somebody.”

“I’m just so worried what’s going to happen,” the woman told the operator.

Meanwhile, a school counselor had informed Marcee Gray that her son had made references to school shootings, she told ABC News, prompting her and the teen’s grandfather to travel 200 miles from Fitzgerald to Winder, Georgia.

Concerned parents reported their children were in danger

Parents called 911 the day of the shooting concerned about the safety of their children, the new recordings reveal.

“A parent is on the phone with their child,” an officer urgently says in one recording. “They are in the art room, locked up.”

A male caller told a dispatcher in another recording that his daughter, a school psychologist, was working with a student in a trailer “next to where the shooting was happening.” He said his daughter tried to hide behind a desk with the student.

“I want them to be aware that she’s in a trailer and she can’t lock the doors and if they can check on the trailers … hopefully, they can check and get her out,” the man is heard saying.

The dispatcher confirmed whether the student was with the psychologist, to which the caller responds, “yes, and she didn’t want to call, she didn’t want to make any noise.”

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CNN’s Isabel Rosales, Andy Rose, Lauren Mascarenhas, Celina Tebor, Eric Levenson, Dakin Andone, Meridith Edwards, Sara Smart, Nouran Salahieh, Steve Almasy, Scott Glover, Holly Yan, Jaide Timm-Garcia, Keith Allen, Rebekah Riess, Devon Sayers, Kelly McCleary, Emma Tucker, Alaa Elassar and Taylor Galgano contributed to this report.