It’s been five days since the Appalagee High School shooting, and the details are starting to come out. A few items are notable.
Bri Jones, 14, was in second period Wednesday when Colt Gray left the classroom, Jones said. “We didn’t notice he left,” Jones said, adding that he was “always quiet.” But Gray came back and knocked on the door, Jones said. Bri said she peeked out the door before she opened it because that’s what her mom taught her to do. “As I was looking at the door, he was pulling his gun out, and then I froze up, like I froze up and I said ‘no’ to myself,” she said. The teacher asked for the door to be opened, Bri said, “because she didn’t know he had a gun because she was at her desk.” As she went to open the door, “I was like, ‘No, he has a gun,’” Jones said.
Everyone in that classroom owes their lives to Bri Jones. Generally, 14 year-olds are awfully dumb. Bri should get a statue or t-shirt or something.
Colt Gray, 14, has been charged with murder over the killing of two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, outside Atlanta, on Wednesday. His father, Colin Gray, is accused of second-degree murder for providing his son with a semiautomatic AR 15-style rifle.
The father said that his kid did not have unimpeded access to the firearm and that his son gets teased at school. Both of those statements are bullshit. He bought his son a rifle a few months after talking to law enforcement about troubling posts made on social media. More facts will come out, and I don’t know what the appropriate charge should be, but the father looks culpable.
Colt Gray, 14, apologized to his mother, Marcee Gray, on the morning of the mass shooting at Apalachee High School — sending an alarming, cryptic text Wednesday that prompted the mother to warn the school that something could be wrong, his grandfather told CNN, confirming information he first provided to the New York Post.
A half-hour before the shooting, the student’s mom called the school and had a 10 minute conversation. Apparently she lives a couple of hundred miles away, but she did everything she could.
When will school administrators be held liable for their dereliction of duty? This student had a track record. He was known to law enforcement, his parents and school administration.
An AR-15 isn’t small. Getting a rifle into school shouldn’t be easy.
Schools get fake threats called in pretty often. Students like attention, missing instructional time and anything to break up the monotony. When a parent calls in about a student with a troubled past, the response should be immediate.
Schools have lock-down alerts and stay-put alerts. A stay-put alert means that teachers are to keep students in the room and continue class as usual. Stay-put alerts have been used if a student vomits in the hallway or paramedics are taking someone out on a gurney. Admin wants to keep everyone out of the way.
In my class, a lock-down alert triggers a full defense strategy. Doors are barricaded, sentries are posted, expedient weapons are in hand and we are prepared to punish any intruder. As a personal favor, I ask students not to intentionally kill the intruder. That could leave them troubled, so I will take on that burden. They are encouraged to hang the carcass out the window for the news media.
A stay-put is usually trivial, but a situation could develop. In my class, students are instructed to place their wallets, keys and phone in their pockets in case we need to bug out in a hurry. The classroom door is locked, and class continues uninterrupted.
When the mother called the school, administrators should have initiated a stay-put. The SRO could go to the student’s classroom while other administrators swept the hallways. Take the student to the office, while an administrator checks his locker.
This may sound like 20/20 hindsight, but there were plenty of warning signs. Administrators are paid to anticipate problems and have a duty to keep staff and students safe. Their dereliction of duty resulted in four people dead, a student likely to be in jail for life and a parent in jail for some length of time.
School shootings aren’t a gun problem. Gun owners need to be responsible for their firearms. Parents need to be alert to the dangerous thoughts of their children, law enforcement must be prepared to run toward the shooting and administrators must be prepared to use their judgement and take decisive action.
In the Appalagee High School shooting, the father and the administrators were negligent.