Georgia high school shooting suspect makes first court appearance
Booking photo of Apalachee High School shooting suspect, Colt Gray, released by the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office. — Barrow County Sheriff’s Office
(WINDER, Ga.) — Colt Gray, the 14-year-old accused of opening fire at his Georgia high school, made his first court appearance on Friday, where the judge informed him of the charges against him and ordered him held without bond.
Gray is charged with four counts of felony murder for allegedly shooting and killing two teachers and two students at Apalachee High School on Wednesday.
Another seven students and two teachers were injured. All of the injured victims are expected to make full recoveries, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said.
More charges against Gray are expected, the GBI said.
The 14-year-old will be tried as an adult, authorities said.
A motive has not yet been determined and it is unknown if the victims were targeted, investigators said.
Gray’s aunt, Annie Brown, said her nephew was “begging for help from everybody around him.”
Investigators believe that Gray received the AR-style gun used in the shooting as a Christmas present from his father, according to sources.
The teen’s father, Colin Gray, 54, was arrested Thursday and charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children, the GBI said.
Colin Gray is accused of “knowingly allowing his son, Colt, to possess a weapon,” GBI Director Chris Hosey said Thursday.
Colin Gray is also expected to appear in court on Friday.
(NEW YORK) — Schools in the U.S. remain deeply divided along racial, ethnic and economic lines, even as studies show that the K-12 public school population is becoming more diverse.
More than a third of students attend schools where 75% or more of those in attendance are of a single race or ethnicity, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s most recent investigation into K-12 education.
Saba Bireda and Ary Amerikaner co-founded Brown’s Promise, an initiative to combat racial segregation and honor the legacy of nine Arkansas students who suffered because of it.
In 1954, the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision ruled that public school segregation was unconstitutional. Three years later, the NAACP attempted to enroll nine black students at Little Rock Central High School. The ensuing chaos gripped the nation, with the media dubbing the students “Little Rock Nine.”
Then-Gov. Orval Faubus prevented the students from entering the racially segregated school, using his state’s National Guard for help. President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened after weeks of failed attempts to get the students through a full day of classes safely.
Following the Brown v. Board of Education decision, students started getting bused into schools from different neighborhoods to promote integration. However, much of that has stopped in the decades since.
“Unfortunately, we have come away from our commitment to the spirit of Brown,” Bireda said. “Schools have been resegregating rapidly since the 1980s.”
At the start of that decade, expensive busing orders began to expire. With a history of housing discrimination leading many neighborhoods to be segregated by race, for millions of students, attending the public school closest to their home means it wouldn’t be racially diverse.
Despite the billions of dollars invested in desegregating public schools over the past few decades, school segregation has returned to the same level as it was in the 1960s.
New York high school student Ava Pittman begins her daily commute by taking the public bus, just like millions of other students. However, her journey through the city’s Queens borough starts long before first period — shortly after dawn breaks.
Every morning, Pittman makes the 14-mile, hour-and-a-half journey from the Far Rockaway neighborhood to Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School in Elmhurst. She travels that far because she doesn’t think the schools near her are up to par.
“Schools in certain places like Far Rockaway, the resources are minimal,” Pittman said. “It’s just the quality of education. It’s different.”
Pittman’s opportunities are unique to her location, but the commute takes up most of her day. To her, it’s worth it because of everything she gets to do in that school.
“I co-founded an affinity group called BAM, which is ‘Black at Mel’s.’ ” Pittman said. “I’m also part of a group called ‘The Education Student Advisory Council.’ My speech and debate team is the most diverse in our league, [which is] the Brooklyn Queens Forensic League.”
According to data collected by the Department of Education between 2022 and 2023, among 100,000 public schools across the country, about 83% of all Black public school students and 82% of all Latino students attended a majority non-white school. At the same time, 75% of all white public school students were enrolled in a majority-white school.
At a recent conference in Baltimore, Bireda and Amerikaner met with education leaders to discuss solutions.
“We talk a lot about the importance of full integration to the health of our democracy,” Bireda said. “Students who continually are growing up in segregated environments or not interacting with people from different backgrounds.”
Even at a young age, Pittman advocates for diversity and integration in public schools. She is a youth advocacy director at Integrate NYC, a youth-led organization dedicated to created equity in New York City schools.
According to the Civil Rights Project, New York is one of the most diverse states in the nation. Despite this, it is one of the most segregated.
In a lawsuit against the state, Integrate NYC alleges that the city’s sorting and admission process forces students of color into the most overcrowded and under-resourced schools.
“We agree with plaintiffs that achieving those educational goals is made harder by the complex system of biases and inequities deeply rooted in this country’s history, culture, and institutions — a system that we also want to change,” the New York City Department of Education said in a statement sent to ABC News. “But this lawsuit is not the answer. We are prepared to defend against these claims in court.”
Unless something is done to improve school integration, Pittman and thousands of other students across the country will have to keep fighting for their education and the opportunities that come with it.
(NEW YORK) — Two now-retired chiefs from the New York City Fire Department were arrested early Monday morning following a yearlong corruption investigation, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Retired Chief Brian Cordasco was arrested at home on Staten Island. Retired Chief Anthony Saccavino was arrested at home in Manhattan, the sources said.
Saccavino and Cordasco “repeatedly abused their positions of trust as high-ranking officials in the New York City Fire Department” by soliciting and accepting tens of thousands of dollars in bribe payments in exchange for providing preferential treatment to certain individuals and companies, according to an indictment unsealed Monday in Manhattan federal court.
The two men were chiefs with the FDNY Bureau of Fire Prevention, which regulates the installation of fire safety and suppression systems in commercial and residential buildings. For nearly two years, the indictment said, Saccavino and Cordasco misused this authority for their own financial gain.
The two allegedly accepted $190,000 in bribes in exchange for expediting inspections, according to the indictment.
The FBI had searched their homes and offices earlier this year. he FDNY placed the chiefs on modified duty at the time. The New York City Department of Investigation searched FDNY headquarters as well.
The alleged scheme appears to have been discovered as an offshoot of the investigation into whether Mayor Eric Adams’ campaign took illegal money from Turkey in exchange for expediting the inspection of the new Turkish consulate.
Cordasco publicly complained about a so-called “City Hall List” of building projects that should be prioritized by FDNY inspectors, according to the indictment.
(NEW YORK) — Details about the murder of two teenage girls in Delphi, Indiana, in 2017 were revealed for the first time Friday during the trial of the man accused of killing them.
Richard Allen is charged in the murders of Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14. The two friends were found dead a day after they went out for a walk on a hiking trail in February 2017.
Allen has pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder.
Police have never released how the eighth graders were killed. During opening statements Friday in the long-awaited trial in Carroll County, Indiana, the prosecutors provided the jurors with details about the murders.
“You’re going to see the crime scene,” prosecutor Nick McLeland said. “It was a gruesome scene. Libby was completely naked. Her throat was cut, blood all over. Abby’s throat was also cut.”
McLeland said the case is about three things: the “bridge guy,” an unspent bullet found at the crime scene and the brutal murders of Libby and Abby, who were found dead near the Monon High Bridge.
According to McLeland, Libby posted a photo of Abby on Snapchat while they were crossing over the Monon High Bridge. After the girls crossed the bridge, they saw a man behind them, so Libby started a recording on her phone at 2:13 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2017, he said.
McLeland said the man pulled out a gun and ordered the girls “down the hill.” The girls complied and then, the video on the cellphone stopped recording.
According to McLeland, Allen testified that he was on the trail that day. Investigators also found a gun in his house, and testing showed a bullet found at the crime scene cycled through that gun.
McLeland said Allen also confessed to committing the crime to his wife and mother voluntarily while in jail.
Defense attorney Andrew Baldwin said in his opening statement that there is reasonable doubt in the case, arguing that the state’s investigation was botched from the beginning.
Baldwin questioned the timeline and cellphone evidence in the state’s case, holding up a phone to the jury and saying, “Forensic data on these phones don’t lie.”
Baldwin said the prosecution claims Abby and Libby were dead by 4 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2017, and their bodies were never moved until they were recovered the next day. He said the prosecution’s timeline puts Allen in a parking lot near the trial at 1:30 p.m. but his cellphone data shows he was gone by 2:15 p.m.
Addressing the unspent round found at the crime scene, Baldwin said law enforcement commonly used that type of bullet, but police never investigated if an officer was missing one. He also said the owner of the property where the girls were found owns a similar weapon but his gun was never tested.
The defense also argued Allen’s mental health was in decline while in prison, which led to him to confess to the crime.
The defense told jurors they believe the girls were killed somewhere else and their bodies were returned to the crime scene — that searchers saw no bodies or girl’s clothing in the creek on the night of Feb. 13, and witnesses near the crime scene also never heard any screams.
Baldwin also said hair found in Abby’s hand was a possible match to a female relative of Libby, and not Allen. The defense revealed the evidence for the first time during proceedings earlier in the week.
Ahead of opening statements, Judge Frances Gull ruled the composite sketches of a person of interest in the case released by the Indiana State Police early in the investigation will not be used during the trial.
Prosecutors had filed a motion seeking to prevent defense attorneys from referencing the sketches, arguing they were for generating leads in the case and were not used to identify Allen as a suspect in the case.
