Apalachee students describe shooting scene, aftermath in second day of trial
Bullet scars. Bad dreams. Anxiety about school and loud noises. One by one, students took the witness stand Tuesday in Barrow County to describe what happened to them since a gunman opened fire inside Apalachee High School in September 2024.
The students’ identities are being protected by the court, so they won’t be photographed. Most of them are still in counseling more than a year after Colt Gray allegedly carried out the deadliest attack at a Georgia school, they told the jury during Tuesday’s testimony.
This was the second day of the trial against Colt’s father, Colin Gray, who is facing 29 counts, including two counts of second-degree murder and 20 counts of cruelty to children related to the victims of the shooting. Colin Gray was not mentioned at all by the students, teachers, nurses and doctors, who also testified, on Tuesday.
His defense attorneys did not ask a single question to any of the victims, either. More students are expected to testify in the coming days as prosecutors try to establish the facts of the underlying crime, which in this case is the shooting that left two students and two teachers dead.
The prosecutors’ strategy in the case was interesting, Colorado District 23 District Attorney George Brauchler told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He said it’s a lot to ask a jury to listen to dozens of kids talk one after the other about a traumatizing incident like a school shooting.
“They may be trying to get through the kids as fast as possible. I don’t think there’s any problem with it; I don’t think it’s a question of it being wrong. I think the question is, ‘Is that the most impactful way to tell this story?’” Brauchler said. “My experience and my answer would be, it’s not.”
Brauchler has his fair share of experience prosecuting mass shooting cases. He was the lead prosecutor in the adjacent 1999 Columbine High School shooting, where the two people who sold the guns to the shooters were prosecuted, and the 2019 STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting.
He was also one of the lead prosecutors in the 2012 Aurora Theater shooting during a showing of “The Dark Knight.” In the Apalachee case, Brauchler said he would have spread the children’s testimony out through the trial to remind jurors on a constant basis about what the case is really about.
“It’s about these kids, and it’s about these teachers that died, and so you spread the victims out,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s the wrong way to do it. I’m saying it’s just a lot to throw at the jury on the first (full) day of evidence.”
It’s unknown what additional witnesses prosecutors in Barrow County plan to call throughout trial, but Brauchler said he would make sure to leave his most impactful witness to the end, like he did in the Aurora case, where he had the paralyzed mother of a 6-year-old killed in the shooting be the last witness.
Atlanta defense attorney Suri Chadha Jimenez, who is not involved in the case, said it’s difficult as an attorney having to make victims recount a traumatic event on the stand in open court.
“Every time you deal with delicate witnesses, which are minors, victims of sexual assault, just people that were traumatized, you want to think about it very carefully before you call them up,” said Chadha Jimenez, who is a former prosecutor.
Colt Gray is not expected to go to trial, after his defense attorneys originally suggested he might plead guilty to his 55 charges. But if that changes, it’s likely that prosecutors will have to call up those same victims to testify again.
Chadha Jimenez said that could present an additional set of challenges from a legal standpoint, because it opens up the possibility of defense attorneys challenging previous testimony.
“If there’s inconsistencies (in testimony), now those witnesses are being put in a situation where they might get crossed on (Colt Gray’s case), where their testimony is absolutely needed,” he said.
Brauchler said parents would often ask him not to make their children testify, so as to not traumatize them again.
“It’s exponentially and potentially traumatic for children to have to go into court and testify to those things, but if you’re going to have a meaningful approach towards accountability and justice on these cases, you have to know, you have to believe that you’re able to go to trial successfully and try these things,” he said.
It can also be hard for the victims and families to relive a traumatizing event in open court multiple times. Attorney Ven Johnson, who represented the families of victims of the Oxford, Michigan, high school shooting, said some don’t understand how difficult it might be for some to testify or even observe testimony.
“It’s very, very difficult, and a lot of people don’t understand when we hear about reliving, some people will tell you, ‘I can’t relive it, and therefore this is hurtful, don’t do it,’” Johnson said.
The prosecutors in Oxford were the first to charge parents, in that case Jennifer and James Crumbley, in relation to their child’s alleged perpetration of a school mass shooting. Their 15-year-old son, Ethan, admitted he opened fire in a suburban Detroit high school, killing four students.
Johnson said he has also heard from therapists and psychologists that testifying in court and holding someone accountable can, at times, be very therapeutic and healing.
Trials have many highs and lows and can cause emotional reactions among victims and their families, Johnson said. He felt “blessed” that he was able that the Oxford families were able to rely on them during that time.
In the end, Jennifer and James Crumbley were convicted, and their son pleaded guilty, but when the victims’ families attempted to sue the school district, the case was ultimately dismissed due to the district and school staff having immunity under Michigan law.
Johnson said some were relieved when the shooter pleaded guilty, while others felt their day in court had been stolen. He feels it was better for the families not to have to go through another trial.
Colin Gray’s trial will continue Wednesday as prosecutors continue trying to prove that he knowingly allowed his son access to guns and ammunition “after receiving sufficient warning that Colt Gray would harm and endanger the bodily safety of another” and caused “with criminal negligence” the death of the four victims.
On the day of the incident, Gray allegedly took a SIG Sauer M400, gifted to him by his father for Christmas, to school, where he opened fire and killed two students — Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn — and two teachers — Cristina Irimie and Richard Aspinwall. Nine others were injured.
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