AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
An update now from the shooting at Apalachee High School outside Atlanta last week. The mother of the 14-year-old suspect is reported to have contacted the school the morning of the shooting to warn a counselor of a, quote, "extreme emergency." Reporter Sarah Blaskey of The Washington Post broke the story and joins us now. Good morning.
SARAH BLASKEY: Good morning.
RASCOE: So what have you learned about what Colt Gray's mother did that morning?
BLASKEY: So what we understand - and this is from text messages exchanged between family members and phone logs from the family's phone plan - is that at 9:50 a.m., Colt Gray's mother - the shooting suspect's mother called Apalachee High School. She had a 10-minute phone conversation, and what she later told her family members was that during that conversation, she talked to a school counselor and told them of an emergency. She asked them to go get her son out of class immediately. That was at 9:50 a.m. And what we understand is that people that were there were reporting shots fired at about 10:20 a.m. So there's still a lot of questions - what, you know, tipped her off to the impending tragedy? Why did she call? What exactly did she say? - but that's our understanding so far, is that that call was made.
The other thing I think is important to add is speaking to Marcee Gray's sister, Annie Brown, who spoke with her sister after this event. She said, what she understands happened on that call is that the counselor told the suspect's mother that the teen had been discussing school shootings and that his teacher, earlier that day, had alerted the school to that as well.
RASCOE: What do you know about how the school responded to all of this?
BLASKEY: We still don't know. The school has not given any response to questions about that, so there are still a lot of unanswered things. What we do know from students in his class - it was second period, and the suspect was in an algebra class. He got up and left, as did another student - went to the bathroom with a very similar name to the suspected shooter. And then a school administrator came into the class, according to one of the students there, and took the backpack of the student with the similar name.
Now, that student later came back, spoke to a friend and said that he thought that the administrator had mistaken him for Colt Gray, the suspected shooter, probably because of their similar names. So it indicates that perhaps the school was trying to intervene in those moments before the shooting. And basically, right after that student came in and said he thought they had the wrong person...
RASCOE: And...
BLASKEY: ...They were searching his backpack, not the others...
RASCOE: Can...
BLASKEY: ...That's when the shots happened.
RASCOE: Can I ask you - so has the school responded to your reporting, or have any of the authorities investigating the shooting responded to your reporting?
BLASKEY: So the school has said that they are focused on the victims and the families right now, on their students and the communities, and they're directing all questions to law enforcement. Law enforcement is not responding any further. They have said that they are not planning to provide any further details from the investigation at this time.
But I did hear from Marcee Gray herself last night after we published this story online. She did confirm the details. She didn't give any further details about why exactly she called the school or what exactly she said, but she did say that she has given that information to law enforcement and passed on her deepest regrets to the families involved.
RASCOE: And again, Marcee Gray is Colt Gray's mother.
BLASKEY: That's correct.
RASCOE: Yeah. That's Sarah Blaskey of The Washington Post. Thank you so much.
BLASKEY: Thank you for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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