Georgia students detail horrors of 2024 school shooting at trial of suspect’s father

Students injured in a 2024 shooting took the stand Tuesday on the second day of a trial of the shooting suspect’s father, who is alleged to have provided his son access to a firearm.

Colin Gray is charged with two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of involuntary manslaughter, 20 counts of cruelty to children and five counts of reckless conduct. His son, Colt Gray, has been charged as an adult with four counts of felony murder. A trial date has not been set for him yet.

Fourteen minors spoke about the morning of Sept. 4, when Colt Gray is alleged to have opened fire, killing two students and two teachers and wounding nine other people. Mason Schermerhorn, 14; Christian Angulo, 14; Richard Aspinwall, 39; and Cristina Irimie, 53, were killed.

‘I reached down and noticed that I got hit’

Nautica Watson recalled sitting at her second-period class when she heard a loud bang.

“I remember my teacher falling to the floor in front of me,” Watson said in court Tuesday. “I remember seeing her fall down before I turned around and saw there was somebody at the door with like a weapon.”

Watson said she got on the ground with her classmates when her teacher pulled her to the side to check whether she was OK. Her teacher told her to stay awake.

“I remember just a really, like, I felt, like, a really hot spot at the bottom of my leg,” Watson said. “And then I reached down and noticed that I got hit. And then my friend Brittany took off her jacket and wrapped it around my leg. And then I passed out after that.”

Since then, Watson hasn’t been able to play sports because of leg pain, and she has felt very paranoid at school. Months after the shooting, she had consistent nightmares.

“I don’t like being in front of the doors at school,” Watson said. “I, like, don’t use the bathroom at school. I always stay with somebody very closely after the incident happened.”

Natalie Griffith was in algebra class when she heard a ringing in her ear.

“I looked down and there was blood,” Griffith said about her left wrist, where she was shot twice. She recalled starting to scream and falling to the floor.

First responders eventually carried Griffith out of the room. She remembers worrying about her friend, whose classroom was around the corner.

“I was also worried that I was going to die and how that would affect my parents,” Griffith recalled.

She remembers seeing the shooter when she was being carried out.

“I was very angry, especially at the time, because I thought that they were going to have to amputate my hand,” she said.

‘If I don’t make it I love you all’

William Cariker sent out a mass text to eight of his loved ones when the shooter was at his classroom door.

“There’s a school shooting if I don’t make it I love you all,” Cariker wrote.

The shooting lasted for a few seconds, Cariker said. When he called out to his friend, Christian, who was closest to the classroom door, he didn’t respond. Cariker had known Christian since kindergarten, he said.

Makaylah Brown, who was in the same classroom as William, remembered shielding her friend’s eyes so she wouldn’t see Christian’s body.

Aryanna Norman said she had to be put on anxiety medication after the shooting.

“Even to go on a walk around my neighborhood, anxiety would fill my head, and I’d feel like somebody would drive past me and shoot me,” Norman said in court Monday.

She sometimes recalls seeing her classmate Christian.

“What happens when I recall that day is usually I just see Christian laying on the floor, lifeless,” she said.