How police failed to see the suspected Georgia shooter as a threat | The Excerpt

On Friday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer explains what experts are saying about police failures to see the suspected Georgia school shooter as a threat. Former President Donald Trump held his first post-debate rally in Arizona Thursday. Plus, he says he won't debate Vice President Kamala Harris a second time. We also hear about some new developments to his legal issues. A judge overturns North Dakota's abortion ban. USA TODAY Personal Finance Reporter Daniel de Visé talks about the surgeon general's warning on parenting. The Pac-12 adds four Mountain West schools.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Taylor Wilson:

Good morning, I'm Taylor Wilson. Today is Friday, September 13th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today; could authorities have done more to prevent this month's school shooting in Georgia? Plus, Trump says he won't debate Harris again, and a Surgeon General's latest public health warning is about parenting.

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The FBI got a tip that might've helped prevent the Georgia high school shooting earlier this month, and the investigation offers insight into how such clues are handled. I spoke with USA TODAY domestic security correspondent Josh Meyer to learn more.

Josh, thanks for hopping on today.

Josh Meyer:

Happy to be here Taylor.

Taylor Wilson:

Josh, would you just tell us about this meeting that happened between local sheriffs and this father and son? Why did they show up to the house in the first place and what did officials learn on that day?

Josh Meyer:

About 15 months before the shooting, the FBI received a tip, actually from three separate sources, that there was somebody threatening to shoot up a school and they included photos of guns including an AR-15 rifle. They tried to figure out exactly where the threat was coming from. They traced it to some internet IP addresses and they sent the tip to the cops in Jackson County, Georgia. That prompted two investigators to go to the house of Colin Gray to speak to his 13-year-old son, Colt, because he'd been tied to one of the IP addresses.

Taylor Wilson:

Was there any follow-up, Josh, after this meeting at the father and son's home?

Josh Meyer:

Taylor, that's what we're trying to figure out. And as far as we can tell, and as far as the Sheriff's department is saying, they conducted a fairly short interview there with the dad and with the son on that day. Then one of the investigators, a guy named Daniel Miller, called the dad back to ask him some follow-up questions. As far as we can tell, that was it. They forwarded their information to the FBI. They've released, under Freedom of Information Act requests, some of those reports. The reports are very rudimentary and they do raise a lot of questions about whether the cops asked enough questions and whether they had the potential to intervene almost a year and a half before the shooting.

Taylor Wilson:

Josh, I'm curious about what experts criticize here specifically. These sheriffs mentioned something called an agency assist report, they were filing for the FBI. That makes me wonder, was there any breakdown in collaboration between federal and local agencies? What do experts say on this and what else do they criticize?

Josh Meyer:

I talked to a woman who used to be in charge of the FBI's active shooter program, and so she's one of the world's experts on this, and she now runs a program designed to stop school shootings. She said that it's proper protocol for the FBI to pass along these tips to local authorities, because they're the ones that can actually do the investigations, they can arrest people and so forth if, they deem something as a threat.

But the local cops, as this woman, Katherine Schweit also said, a lot of these local authorities are not well-equipped to ask the right kind of questions. There's no real template for what they should ask and they just asked a lot of basic questions. They asked if the son used Discord, which is the social media app on which the threats were made, if there were guns in the house. When the dad said, "Yes, there was guns in the house, and we use them for hunting," they never asked if there were any AR-15s or that kind of assault rifle that was mentioned in the threat. They never went into the house to check. Maybe they would've needed a warrant, I'm sure they would've, but they didn't really drill down on how many guns were at the house, what kind of access the kid had, whether he had any significant emotional problems. Again, it's easy in hindsight to question these guys, but I think it raised some bigger issues about whether local authorities are really equipped to do these investigations.

Taylor Wilson:

What do some of these solutions look like to try and prevent the next mass shooting?

Josh Meyer:

I think there's solutions potentially up and down the line. This former FBI agent, Kate Schweit, one of the things she suggested was that not too long ago there were no real templates for how to approach a domestic violence investigation. So when you'd show up at the house and the wife would say nothing happened, but you would see bruises on her or you could tell she was afraid, nothing would happen. Then they develop these protocols and laws saying that if you see any evidence of abuse, even if the victim denies it, that you should proceed and investigate further and take people into custody. She's recommending that maybe there's kind of some template education and so forth, so cops do know what kind of questions to ask in situations like this, because it's happening more and more.

We also identified some questions about whether the school did enough. The kid, who has now been charged with murder, did say that he was bullied a lot at this school. He did say that he'd been seeing a counselor about it. The question is, did the cops then talk to the counselor, see if there were any emotional problems, and also did they talk to the FBI and see if the FBI could help further investigate these tips? Because at the end of the day, when the police left the Gray's house, they didn't know who made the threats, so do you just walk away from it or do you continue to investigate until you can really nail down who made those threats? I think the FBI probably has some questions to answer in regard to that as well.

Taylor Wilson:

Josh Meyer with a great breakdown for us, as always, covers domestic security for USA TODAY. Thank you, Josh.

Josh Meyer:

My pleasure. Taylor, as always.

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Taylor Wilson:

Former president Donald Trump attacked Kamala Harris as a communist, promised to remove taxes from overtime pay and doubled down on unfounded dramatic claims of migrant crime during lengthy remarks at an event in Tucson, Arizona last night the former Republican president held his first post-debate campaign event where he recapped his recent debate against Harris and unveiled his latest proposal aimed at addressing voter frustrations with the economy.

Meanwhile, in other Trump news, he said yesterday that he won't debate Vice President Kamala Harris a second time. Making his announcement in a Truth Social post Trump blamed both Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden. Trump and Biden faced off in June before the incumbent dropped out of the race and Harris ascended to the top of the ticket. Harris' campaign called for another Trump-Harris debate just minutes after the Tuesday debate ended. Other Democrats of accused Trump of reeling from polls showing that Harris won the debate handily. Citing three national polls and one swing state poll, ABC News 538 reported that 57% of debate watchers nationally said Harris turned in the better performance, while 34% said Trump did.

Meanwhile, a federal appeals court yesterday rejected Trump's request to freeze a court ruling that allows his New York hush-money criminal sentencing to go forward on November 26th. The ruling at issue came from federal trial judge, Alvin Hellerstein, who said he would not remove the case from the hands of New York trial judge Juan Merchan, and blocked Trump's upcoming sentencing. The court said it was denying Trump's request in light of the sentencing delay he has already gotten. Trump was initially scheduled to be sentenced September 18th, but earlier this month, Judge Merchan granted his request to push the date back past the election.

Finally, a Georgia judge yesterday threw out two of the 10 criminal charges against Trump that had remained in his election racketeering case. You can read more about that with the link in today's show notes.

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A state judge overturned North Dakota's near total abortion ban yesterday, making the procedure legal in the Republican-led state. Burleigh County District judge, Bruce Romanek, ruled that the abortion ban, which went into effect after Roe V. Wade was overturned, violates due process protections under North Dakota's state constitution. The judge wrote, "The North Dakota Constitution guarantees each individual, including women, the fundamental right to make medical judgments affecting his or her bodily integrity, health and autonomy in consultation with a chosen healthcare provider, free from government interference." The state's attorney general plans to appeal the ruling, and though the order will make abortion legal in the state, the nearest clinic is still in Minnesota.

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The Surgeon General's latest public health warning says parenting may be hazardous to your health. I spoke with USA TODAY personal finance reporter, Daniel de Visé, for more.

Howdy, Daniel.

Daniel de Visé:

How are you doing?

Taylor Wilson:

Good, good. Thanks for helping on The Excerpt today. This really stood out to me, Daniel. Tell us about this Surgeon General health warning over parenting.

Daniel de Visé:

Yeah. This is, of course, the organization that put out the dangers of smoking and alcohol and stuff. Their latest public health warning is about parenting. It basically says that parents have reached a really high level of stress, a lot of it's financial, which is why you're hearing a personal finance reporter talking about it. The takeaway, the thing that made me want to write a story is that right at the top of the report it says two-fifths of parents now say that on most days, and I quote, "They are so stressed that they cannot function."

Taylor Wilson:

Wow. I want to get to some of the specifics you outline here in the piece in a second, Daniel. Have we heard from parents, I know you're one of them, Daniel, and child care advocates after this warning?

Daniel de Visé:

Before and after, I mean we, at USA TODAY, have been writing about this stuff. The child desert, child care has gotten much more expensive and also harder to access, so people are on these crazy wait lists. We all know anecdotal stories that more and more, both parents, both partners are working full time, which was not the case in the 1960s. A lot has changed. All of this is pushing people to wait longer and longer to have kids. That's all the backdrop.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. Let's break down some of these specific issues. You mentioned child care prices, they're on the rise. How bad have these gotten? Just how big of a stress is this putting on American parents, Daniel?

Daniel de Visé:

I think child care might be the biggest thing. My wife and I struggled with it ourselves. According to reports, this is not part of this study that I'm writing about, but the average household pays about $325 a week on child care, which is about 20% of the weekly income. Another report I found said the average family spends about a quarter of household income on child care. In this report from the Surgeon General, I think child care comes up as maybe the biggest single source of stress. Another piece of this, which is also in the Surgeon General's report, is that parents are providing more child care themselves directly to their kids.

Taylor Wilson:

Well, and that leads me to my next point here, Daniel. Parents do have just all kinds of more demands I feel like nowadays, maybe compared to past generations. What are some of the many, many things that they're juggling in this era?

Daniel de Visé:

If you go back to the eighties, moms especially work a lot more, several more hours a week. This is on average. There was a lot of moms that weren't working at all in the eighties, but dads also are working a little more than they were then. Then child care delivery is also more prevalent. So your typical mom and your typical dad is both spending more hours working and spending more hours delivering child care, on average, than their own parents were. Then you can start to get into the why, and some of that even gets to the pandemic, the fact that it's easier now for parents to provide their own child care to their kids.

Taylor Wilson:

Another thing I don't think we've brought up here, Daniel, that's clearly different from even a generation ago, is the proliferation of technology and social media. What new challenges do these bring for parents?

Daniel de Visé:

I don't think anybody would disagree that social media, and you could blame whoever you want, but there's a whole bunch of these sites, they're "hijacking" children's brains, monopolizing their time, isolating them from loved ones, amplifying mental health issues. That's clearly connected to this mental health crisis that we keep hearing about, and I keep writing about. This was an issue for me as a parent. 10, 15 years ago, and it's probably even more of an issue now. I don't think anybody has the definitive answer for how to handle technology with kids of different ages. It's just one of these insoluble problems.

Taylor Wilson:

I'm curious, are there policy decisions that can help stressed out parents in this moment?

Daniel de Visé:

The Surgeon General talks about expanding and promoting Head Start and Healthy Start, which are programs of course that help parents with early education and healthcare needs. I think a big thing that you've heard candidates talk about is establishing a national paid family and medical leave program. I don't actually have space for it in the story, but also the tax credit. You could make a bigger child care tax credit than what we've had in the last bunch of years.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Daniel de Visé covers personal finance for USA TODAY. Thank you, Daniel.

Daniel de Visé:

My pleasure, sir.

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Taylor Wilson:

The Pac-12 College Athletic Conference announced yesterday that it was poaching four schools from the Mountain West Conference. They are; San Diego State, Boise State, Fresno State, and Colorado State. By bringing in the four schools, existing members, Washington State and Oregon State, will expand the league to at least six teams in 2026, but it still needs at least two more schools to meet the minimum of eight required for league membership under NCAA rules. The Pac-12 is currently being allowed to operate as a two team league under a grace period until 2026, a window that allowed the league time to figure out what to do next after 10 other members recently left for more money, exposure and stability in other leagues. Yesterday's announcement answers part of that question with speculation now set to intensify about who the conference will add next.

Still, USA TODAY sports columnist, Dan Wolken, asks in a new piece this week just how consequential this move actually is. He argues the schools have joined a new league with an old name that is going to look almost exactly like the Mountain West. You can check out that piece with a link in today's show notes.

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Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. We're produced by Shannon Rae Green and Kaely Monahan, and our executive producer is Laura Beatty. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.