Suspect's Mother Called School With 'Extreme' Warning

The mother of the 14-year-old suspect in this week's Georgia school shooting called his high school with an urgent warning minutes before the assault took place, reports the Washington Post. Administrators apparently took the threat seriously but were unable to stop the attack.

• "I was the one that notified the school counselor at the high school," Marcee Gray, the mother of Colt Gray, texted her sister afterward. "I told them it was an extreme emergency and for them to go immediately and find [my son] to check on him." CNN confirms the texts to sister Annie Brown.
• An administrator went to the classroom where Colt Gray was supposed to be, but there was some confusion, the Post reports. The administrator asked about a student with a similar-sounding name and took that student's backpack, another student in the classroom tells the Post. However, neither Colt Gray nor the misidentified student (who had left for the bathroom) were in the classroom at the time. The shooting began minutes later.

• The grandfather of the shooting suspect tells the New York Post that the teen sent his mother a text saying, "I'm sorry, mom" that morning. It may have been that text that prompted Marcee Gray to call the school.
• Marcee Gray is separated from the teen's father, Colin Gray, and lives about three hours away from the school in Winder, Georgia, where the shooting took place. Her father, Charles Polhamus, tells the New York Post that she drove to Apalachee High School after getting her son's text. Marcee Gray confirmed to the Washington Post that she warned the school. "I am so, so sorry and cannot fathom the pain and suffering they are going through right now," she said of the victims' families.
• Colin Gray also has been charged with murder because prosecutors say he allowed his son to have the gun used in the attack despite previous concerns about the teen's mental health and an apparent obsession with school shootings.

(More school shooting stories.)