Should parents be charged in school shootings?

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

4.4 • 5.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

Just 36 hours after his 14-year-old son was arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of four people at Georgia’s Apalachee High School, Colin Gray was charged with two counts of second-degree murder and four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Those are the most serious charges ever filed against the parent of an alleged school shooter.

Host Martine Powers speaks with enterprise reporter John Woodrow Cox about how the speed and severity of the charges against Colin Gray mark a shift in school shootings in the United States.

Today’s show was produced by Ariel Plotnick, with help from Rennie Svirnovskiy, Sabby Robinson and Elana Gordon. It was edited by Reena Flores and mixed by Sean Carter.

Subscribe to The Washington Post here. And here’s a link to our series “Surviving to graduation,” which dives deep into the role schools play in combating gun violence.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just after 10 a.m. last Wednesday, students at Appalachian High School were sitting in class when they heard gunshots. Teachers got notifications of a lockdown. Students rushed to take cover in
0:15.2	corners or crammed into closets. Police evacuated kids and teachers through
0:20.1	the hallways. Hours later law enforcement confirmed that two students and two teachers were killed.
0:27.2	The alleged shooter was a 14 year old, a student named Colt Gray who brought an AR-15 style gun to school.
0:35.6	Since then, he's been charged with four counts of homicide and his father has also been charged with two counts of second-degree
0:46.1	murder, four counts of involuntary manslaughter and those amount to the most serious
0:51.6	charges that have ever been filed against the parent of a school
0:55.1	shooter.
0:56.1	That is John Woodrow Cox. He's a reporter at the post and he covers school gun violence.
1:06.0	In the aftermath of this shooting, those charges filed against the father are what has really struck John.
1:13.0	I mean, there is no precedent for charging the parent of a school shooter with murder.
1:17.0	That requires a level of intention that, you know, most legal experts I've talked to think will be hard to prove
1:26.1	Also the speed with which they filed these charges is extraordinary that is never. 36 hours for charges this serious. That suggests that they
1:37.0	have extremely compelling evidence against the father. From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post reports.
1:49.0	I'm Martine Powers.
1:50.8	It's Monday, September 9th. Today, the swift charges against the 14-year-old's father, Colin Gray, aren't just surprising. They mark a cultural shift on how law enforcement thinks about school shootings. We will unpack how we got to this moment and how the high profile prosecution of a school shooter's parents set us on this path. Just a warning, this episode will include
2:15.3	some profanity and descriptions of violence.
2:30.4	So John, help me understand how exactly this horrible event happened. What do we know about this suspected shooter, this 14 year old?
2:34.0	You know, we know there were a lot of warning signs.
2:36.4	We know that dating back a year ago, this was May of 2023, the FBI received anonymous tips about someone on a discord channel who was
2:47.0	threatening to shoot up a school. The FBI took that very seriously. They alerted
2:52.2	the local sheriff's office because they had
	...

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