Here’s what the aunt of suspected Apalachee High School gunman said in 911 call

WINDER, Ga. — 11Alive obtained more 911 calls made on the day of the deadly Apalachee High School shooting on Saturday.

Of those calls, one was made by a woman who identified herself as the aunt of suspected gunman Colt Gray.

While sobbing on the call, she told a Barrow County 911 operator that she was afraid her nephew was involved in the horror that unfolded just after 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 4.

Aunt of Colt Gray: Hey, um, my mom just texted me and said that my nephew texted his mom and dad this morning and told them that he was really sorry. And he goes to the high school — Apalachee.

Operator: Ma’am. OK. Listen. OK. No, it’s OK.

Once the operator gets her to calm down, she clarifies who all got a text message from Colt the morning of the shooting. The woman said just her sister, the suspected shooter’s mother and his father received it.

Aunt of Colt Gray: They called the school and told the counselor to go get him immediately. And then he said he saw there’d – there’d been a shooting, and I’m just worried it was him.

The woman then shared her and her sister’s phone numbers with the 911 operator. She told the operator that she would prefer they would call his mother first because she was trying to get through to someone. Colt Gray’s mother has said she’d called the school before the shooting started, asking administrators to check in on her son.

Fourteen separate audio clips were provided to 11Alive Friday. There are several calls that are directly related to the shooting at Apalachee, although none of the calls released by the sheriff’s office come from any inside the high school.

Most of the 911 calls released come from parents of nearby schools — terrified about possible threats —  and 911 calls after the shooting from parents who are worried about threats at vigils.

None of the 911 calls released contain any audio where minors are involved. So, no 911 calls released are from inside Apalachee High School.

Below are portions of audio from two callers.

The first call comes from a person who says he is the boyfriend of a student at Apalachee High. The beginning of the 911 call and other parts throughout, are cut off due to an audio alert that’s playing that states that Barrow County 911 is experiencing a high call volume.

911 operator: “Sir, did your girlfriend state that there was somebody actively shooting, or there was just a threat?”

Caller: “Yes, yes, yes. No, no — somebody was actively shooting.”

The next roughly seven minutes of the phone call are inaudible due to the emergency alert over the call. It eventually goes away, and you are able to clearly hear the conversation between the caller and operator. The operator begins by talking to dispatch, asking if there are officers at the scene of Apalachee High School.

911 operator: “We have a caller on the line that said he got a call from his girlfriend advising of an active shooter at Apalachee High School.”

911 operator: “Do you guys have officers on site at Apalachee High School?”

Dispatch: “Yes, ma’am, we do have officers on site. I cannot confirm or deny what is going on, though.”

Caller: “OK, so, y’all got info that there is a shooter at the high school, right?”

Dispatch: “I have units on scene at the school. I cannot confirm or deny what’s going on there, though.”

Caller: “Uh, well, I was just saying do y’a’ll need information? She’s texting me right now telling me everything that’s going on.”

Dispatch: “…Do you know where she’s at?”

Caller: “I just know she was hiding. I don’t know where exactly she’s at because the connection over there is bad. All I know is that she’s hiding out, and she just told me she hears people yelling outside — so I don’t know if that’s officers in the building, or I don’t know.”

The dispatcher once again tells the caller that she cannot confirm or deny anything that is going on.

Caller: “OK never mind. She said they are trying to evacuate … she said they are trying to evacuate them right now. I don’t know she’s answering right now. Maybe because (they’re being told) to put the phone down right now … Police are making them put their hands up right now.”

Another 911 call came from the mother of a student at Apalachee High School, who called after she said her daughter alerted her to gunfire from inside the school. 

911 operator: “Barrow County 911, what is the address of your emergency?”

Caller: “…Apalachee High School…my daughter is calling me crying. Somebody went ‘boom, boom, boom, boom.'”

911 operator: “We have officers out there, OK?”

Caller: [Inaudible] please!

911 operator: “We got people there, OK?”

You can hear the panic in the mother’s voice as she speaks to the operator.

Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said the shooting lasted less than a minute. However, four people died in the shooting while nine others were hurt.

The GBI said deputies with the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office responded minutes after reports of an active shooter at 10:20 a.m. and encountered the suspect, who “immediately surrendered to these officers, and he was taken into custody.”

The timeline has come further into focus since the shooting, as the mother of the accused shooter has spoken with news outlets about how she contacted the school roughly a half hour before the shooting began to warn that her son was having an “extreme emergency.”

According to AP reporting, a student previously said she saw Colt Gray briefly in the second-period algebra class, where she sat next to him, but that he left the room. The GBI now says on its FAQ page that Colt Gray “asked a teacher if he could go to the front office to speak with him,” but instead “went to the restroom and hid from teachers.”

“Later, he took out the rifle, and began shooting,” the GBI page states.

8:15 a.m. — First period begins. Officials have not said what class Colt Gray was scheduled for, or if he attended. The GBI says he arrived at school on the bus, and brought the AR-15-style rifle used in the shooting to school hidden in his backpack.

9:38 a.m. — First period ends. Students have seven minutes to change to their next class.

9:45 a.m. — Second period begins. Student Lyela Sayarath said she briefly saw Gray in the algebra class where the two sat next to each other. But Gray left the room. Sayarath said she assumed Gray was skipping class, but the GBI has now clarified he went to a bathroom to hide from teachers.

9:50 a.m. — Marcee Gray, Colt’s mother, calls the high school from 200 miles away in Fitzgerald, Georgia, to warn that her son is having an “extreme emergency,” according to call logs, texts and an interview by Gray’s aunt, Annie Brown, with The Washington Post. Brown later confirmed the account to the AP but declined to comment further.

9:45 a.m. to 10:20 a.m. — An administrator comes to the algebra classroom looking for a student with the same last name and a similar first name to Colt Gray, Sayarath said. The other student is in the bathroom, she said, but the administrator takes the other student’s bag. When the other student returns, he tells Sayarath that the administrator was actually seeking Colt Gray. In the meantime, the teacher is called on the intercom, Sayarath said.

About 10:20 a.m. — Colt Gray approaches the door of the algebra classroom. As the intercom buzzes again, the teacher responds, “Oh, he’s here,” seeing Gray outside the classroom door, Sayarath said. When students go to open the door, which automatically locks from the inside when closed, Sayarath said they backed away. She said she saw Colt Gray turn away through the window of the door and then she said she heard 10 or 15 consecutive gunshots. People are shot in the hallway and inside at least one classroom, as others in the halls scramble for safety. According to some students, the three teachers are shot while trying to shield students.

10:23 a.m. — After multiple employees press wireless panic buttons embedded in their employee badges, the school goes into lockdown and a massive law enforcement response begins. Students in other classrooms who hear the gunshots begin texting and calling their parents and others.

10:26 a.m. — The two school resource officers assigned to Apalachee High School approach Gray in the hall, according to GBI Director Chris Hosey. Gray immediately surrenders and is taken into custody.

About 11 a.m. — Law enforcement officers begin searching Colin and Colt Gray’s house east of Winder. At the school, officers go from classroom to classroom, first looking for more people with injuries or other shooters. Later, officers evacuate students to the football field as hundreds of parents rush to campus.