A 14-year-old kid was charged with shooting four people dead at a US high school, while his father was charged with manslaughter, police said Thursday, following the country’s most recent outbreak of gun violence.
The youngster is charged with four counts of felony murder after reportedly killing two other 14-year-old students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in the southern state of Georgia on Wednesday.
The attack harmed nine persons, the majority of them were youngsters. Authorities have stated that they are recovering.
Colin Gray, 54, the suspect’s father, was arrested and charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder, and eight counts of cruelty to minors, becoming the latest American parent to face criminal charges following a child’s involvement in a mass shooting.
According to Georgia Bureau of Investigation director Chris Hosey, the allegations stem from Gray’s “knowingly” allowing his kid to possess a handgun.
CNN stated, citing unnamed sources, that the weapons used in the shooting, an AR 15-style assault rifle, was purchased by the teenager’s father as a holiday gift.
The GBI had stated that the suspect will be charged as an adult. He was set to appear in court on Friday, with additional charges expected.
“The investigation into the shooting at Apalachee HS is still active & ongoing,” the agency said in a post on X.
“This is day 2 of a very complex investigation & the integrity of the case is paramount,” it continued, adding that all four victims would be autopsied on Thursday.
School shootings are a shockingly regular occurrence in the United States, where guns outnumber people and regulations on purchasing even powerful military-style rifles are lax.
Parental responsibility in mass shootings, particularly those carried out by minors, has come increasingly under the spotlight in recent months.
“How could you have an assault rifle, a weapon in a house, not locked up and knowing your kid knows where it is?” lamented President Joe Biden, speaking to reporters in Wisconsin on Thursday.
“You’ve got to hold parents accountable if they let their child have access to these guns.”
‘Fact of life’
In April, the parents of a teenager who killed four people in a Michigan school shooting were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in jail in an extraordinary and carefully observed case.
Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first parents of a school shooter to be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the United States for their child’s crimes.
Polls suggest that the majority of Americans want tougher limitations on the use and purchase of firearms, but the National Rifle Association (NRA), a powerful gun ownership lobby, opposes new restrictions, and lawmakers have frequently failed to act.
“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance said of school shootings, as he addressed a crowd in Phoenix, Arizona on Thursday.
He called for more security in US schools.
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris quickly hit back in a post on X, saying school shootings “are not just a fact of life.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way. We can take action to protect our children — and we will,” she wrote.
Her running mate, Tim Walz, agreed, branding Vance’s comment “pathetic.”
“We can’t quit on our kids — they deserve better,” he wrote on X.