Mother suspected of Georgia shooting said she called school before attack, report says

WINDER, Ga. — The mother of a 14-year-old charged with killing four people at a rural Georgia high school said she notified a school counselor the morning of the shooting that it was an “extreme emergency” and that her son needed to be found, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

Law enforcement responded to reports of shots fired at Apalachee High School around 10:20 a.m. Wednesday. The attack killed two teachers, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and two students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and injured nine others. Call records obtained by the Post show that Marcee Gray, the mother of the alleged shooter, made a 10-minute call to the school about a half-hour before the shooting began.

“I was the one who called the high school guidance counselor,” Gray said in a text message to her sister, Annie Brown, according to a screenshot of the conversation obtained by the Post. “I told them it was an extreme emergency and to go find (my son) immediately and check on him.”

Brown would not elaborate on what prompted Gray to warn the school, but Charles Polhamus, the suspect’s grandfather, told the New York Post on Saturday that Gray ran to Winder, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, after receiving a text message from her son that said, “I’m sorry, Mom.”

Brown and Polhamus declined to comment when contacted by USA TODAY. Gray and officials with the Barrow County School System did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The 14-year-old suspect, Colt Gray, has been charged with four counts of murder and remains in juvenile detention without bail. His father, Colin Gray, 54, was also charged Friday with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of child abuse. Neither son nor father entered a guilty plea or asked for bail during their arraignments.

Contributors: Christopher Cann, Eve Chen, Claire Thornton, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mother of Georgia shooting suspect called school before attack: Report