Two students and two teachers were killed and nine people were injured in the shooting at the high school on Wednesday.
The father of the 14-year-old boy suspected of shooting four people and wounding nine others at a Georgia school has been arrested.
State officials said Colin Gray knowingly gave his son Colt the gun he used in Wednesday’s attack.
Gray, 54, was charged with four counts of manslaughter, two counts of premeditated murder and eight counts of child abuse, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said.
“These charges stem from Mr. Gray knowingly allowing his son, Colt, to possess a firearm,” GBI Director Chris Hosey said at a press conference.
Colt Gray has been charged with four counts of murder and authorities have announced he will be tried as an adult. He is scheduled to appear in court via video camera on Friday morning.
The attack on Apalachee High School in Winder, northeast of Atlanta, killed two 14-year-old students and two teachers, reigniting a long-running U.S. debate about gun control.
Investigators say the younger Gray used an “AR platform style” weapon, or semi-automatic rifle, in the shooting.
How exactly the teenager came into possession of the weapon remained unclear.
Citing anonymous sources, CNN reported that the teenager had purchased the weapon, which was an AR-15-style assault rifle, from his father as a Christmas present.
“The investigation into the shooting at Apalachee HS is still active (and) ongoing,” the GBI said in a post on the social media platform X.
Parental responsibility
The two students killed were identified by officials as Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo. The two teachers were Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53. Nine people were injured, seven of them students. All are expected to make a full recovery.
Parental responsibility in mass shootings, especially when committed by minors, has increasingly come into focus in recent months.
“How can you have an assault rifle, a gun, in a house that isn’t locked away, and know that your child knows where it is?” President Joe Biden told reporters on Thursday.
“Parents must be held accountable when they allow their children access to these weapons.”
In April, the mother and father of a Michigan teenager were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison. A jury found them guilty of manslaughter after their son shot and killed four classmates. It was believed to be the first time parents have been held legally responsible for their son’s actions during a school shooting.
Experts and advocates for safer gun use said the Michigan case is an important step toward holding gun-owning parents more accountable for their children’s gun violence.
Studies by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have found that about 75 percent of all attackers at schools brought their weapons from home.
Hundreds of school and college shootings have occurred in the United States over the past two decades, and the carnage has heightened debate over gun laws and the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution’s right to “keep and bear arms.”
