A text, a call, then gunfire: New details raise questions about efforts to prevent Georgia school shooting

“I’m sorry, mom.”

Those were the words Colt Gray texted his mother Wednesday morning before the deadliest school shooting in the United States so far this year erupted at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia.

That text was enough to spur a call from Marcee Gray to her son’s school to warn about an unspecified “extreme emergency” at 9:50 a.m., according to call logs and a text exchange between Marcee Gray and her sister, who provided them to CNN. Marcee Gray spoke to a school counselor for about 10 minutes, Charles Polhamus, her father, told CNN.

“I told them it was an extreme emergency and for them to go immediately and find Colt to check on him,” Marcee Gray later said in a text message to her sister. “I don’t understand what took them so long.”

“If it weren’t for me, they would never have even known to expect anything,” she added in the texts.

The call length and the existence of the texts were first reported by The Washington Post.

Despite the call, at 10:20 a.m. police were responding to an active shooting at the school.