The man is being prosecuted for murder and manslaughter. He notably gave the assault rifle in question to his son, who will be tried at a later date.

The father of an American teenager who killed four people at his high school is on trial for murder and manslaughter, the latest case in which parents are held accountable for a school shooting perpetrated by their child in the United States.

Colt Gray, then 14 years old, killed two teachers and two students in September 2024 at his school in Winder, about 70 kilometers northeast of Atlanta, the capital of the state of Georgia. He also injured nine others. His father, Colin Gray, 55, who was also arrested and charged following the tragedy, has been on trial since Monday for murder and manslaughter.

She is accused, in particular, of ignoring multiple warning signs concerning her son, notably giving him the assault rifle with which he committed his crime for Christmas the previous year. This occurred even though, in May 2023, two police officers had visited the family home, alerted by the FBI, the federal police, which had discovered messages threatening a school shooting being sent from the home's internet address.

The son will soon be tried as an adult.

The defense maintains that Colin Gray was unaware of his son's intentions. His son, now 16, will be tried later as an adult, despite his young age. While school and university shootings remain a recurring tragedy in the United States, largely due to the easy access to firearms, holding the parents of minors who commit such acts accountable is a recent and still rare development.

In April 2024, the parents of a teenager sentenced to life imprisonment for killing four students at his Michigan high school in 2021 with a gun they had given him were sentenced to ten to fifteen years in prison for involuntary manslaughter, a first in the United States.