Fake X page for Georgia school shooting suspect spreads online

"The 14-year-old shooter in Georgia is a @KamalaHQ radical left-wing political extremist. 14 YEARS OLD! Let that sink in," says text in an image shared September 5, 2024 on X.

Gray's name appears above the handle @is_never_wrong_ with a bio that says "Kamala 2024 end all MAGAts" with a gun emoji. The profile also lists the pronouns "she/her/they" and says: "trans pride." 

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Screenshot of an X post taken September 9, 2024

The image circulated elsewhere on X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, with some suggesting transgender people are responsible for the majority of recent school shootings.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) has identified Gray -- a student at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia -- as a suspect in the September 4 shooting. As of September 9, authorities had not identified a motive for the attack and the investigation was ongoing (archived here).

The teenager had been brought to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's attention more than a year ago for threats to commit a school shooting, authorities said. He is being charged as an adult and faces four felony murder counts for allegedly killing two fellow pupils and two teachers.

The suspect's father, 54-year-old Colin Gray, has also been charged with manslaughter in the incident -- the latest chapter in America's gun violence epidemic, which has seen nearly 400 mass shootings this year alone.

Such attacks have fueled a torrent of online disinformation targeting transgender people. The latest claims are similarly false.

The X profile @is_never_wrong_ frequently changes its bio. An archived version of the account does not match the one shared online, sporting a different profile picture and "Trump 2024" in the bio.

As of September 10, the page had another avatar and said: "Professional sarcasm enthusiast/ taco addict/ avid procrastinator" (archived here).

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Screenshot of an X profile taken September 9, 2024

The headshot in the screenshots shared online does not appear to be Colt, whose features in booking photos and court footage differ from the profile photo (archived here and here).

AFP could not find any evidence that Gray is transgender. A press release from the GBI refers to Gray as "he" (archived here). Gray's mother Marcee also refers to him as her son (archived here).

Many posts also exaggerate the number of school shootings committed by transgender individuals.

The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that compiles data on mass shootings in the United States, has logged one school shooting carried out by a suspect who identified as transgender: a 2023 attack in Nashville, Tennessee (archived here).

According to experts at the Williams Institute, a public policy research group at the University of California-Los Angeles, transgender people are four times more likely to be victims of violent crime than cisgender people (archived here). The nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center also reports that "transgender people are more likely to be victims, rather than perpetrators, of gun violence" (archived here).

A report by the US Secret Service's National Threat Assessment Center on mass attacks from 2016 to 2020 found two percent of attackers were transgender, three percent were female and 96 percent were male (archived here).

AFP has debunked misinformation about other mass shootings here.