Maryland prosecutor calls for more parent accountability in wake of Georgia school shooting

Colin Gray, 54, is charged with involuntary manslaughter, second degree murder, and cruelty to children. His son, 14-year-old Colt Gray, is accused of killing four at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia during an attack Wednesday.

The father is accused of giving his son an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle for Christmas, despite dire warnings about threats the boy allegedly made in 2023.

The case puts the spotlight on new efforts to hold parents accountable for mass shootings committed by their kids, according to Montgomery County, Maryland State's Attorney John McCarthy.

“We look around the country and you look at parents being charged ─ they're not purely being charged because their child goes out and commits a crime. They're being charged because they had a direct involvement in enabling the child to commit the crime," McCarthy said.

McCarthy said prosecutors in Maryland have an important new tool to go after parents called Jaelynn’s Law, which holds parents accountable if they fail to secure guns in the home from kids 17 and younger.

It was pushed through the Maryland General Assembly in 2023 after a shooting at Great Mills High School in St. Mary’s County that killed 17 year old Jaelynn Willey in 2018.

Virginia has a similar law. It applies in case of kids 14 and younger.

Also in Virginia, an assistant principal was charged with child abuse in Newport News this spring for allegedly ignoring warnings that a 6-year-old had a gun in school. The child shot his teacher.

In 2022, a Baltimore woman went to prison after being convicted of reckless endangerment for letting a 9-year-old get a hold of a pistol and shot a teen.

The takeaway point, McCarthy said, is that prosecutors and investigators across the country are on notice that communities expect law enforcement to investigate parents when kids get guns and hold them accountable with whatever laws their state has available to prosecute.