2y ago

The parents of a school shooter are heading to trial. The rare case could pit them against each other.

www.nbcnews.com

James and Jennifer Crumbley face four counts of involuntary manslaughter each after their son, Ethan, killed four students at Oxford High School in 2021.

Ethan Crumbley was 15 when he opened fire at his suburban Detroit high school in November 2021, armed with a semi-automatic handgun that his parents helped purchase as an early Christmas present.

The rampage left four students dead and several others injured, shattering the close-knit community of Oxford, Michigan, and resulting last month in a life sentence without parole for Crumbley, who was charged as an adult and pleaded guilty to two dozen counts, including for murder and terrorism.

Now, scrutiny falls on the teenager’s parents.

In a rare attempt to hold the parents of a school shooter criminally responsible, James Crumbley, 47, and his wife, Jennifer, 45, are each facing four counts of involuntary manslaughter and will be tried separately, with a trial set to open with jury selection in Oakland County on Tuesday.

38 comments

2 fucking months. They got him a gun and he lasted all of 2 months before going on a killing spree. There is zero chance in hell he went from normal and well adjusted to mass shooter in those 2 months. There had to have been lots of signs of mental health issues and they still GAVE HIM A FUCKING GUN
- There were indeed signs. The school intervened and called the parents because he was having these homicidal ideations. The useless deadbeat parents' genius idea? Get him a gun to vent his anger. They proceed to go back to basically ignoring him and going to bars while leaving him home alone all day routinely. All the while the bullying he was subject to at school continued.
  
  I say just toss em in a room with the parents of the other kids and let nature take its course.
- Yes. He specifically told them he was not okay mentally (admitted to hearing voices and having violent thoughts). They did nothing to get him help and instead bought him a gun.
  
  If that is true then it makes me wonder if they were just hoping he'd kill himself. That's really dark and I'd love to think they were just negligent and not malicious.
- There is zero chance in hell he went from normal and well adjusted to mass shooter in those 2 months.
  Give that there were some other warning signs in this case I agree with you, but don't underestimate how quickly someone can go off the deep end
  I've had a couple friends who've had some mental health issues that came on very suddenly with no warning. They didn't go out and hurt anyone, but from where they ended up it probably wasn't that big of a leap if their friends and family weren't on top of things trying to reel them in and get them help. I could definitely imagine them becoming a danger to themselves or others if they were left to their own devices for 2 months when it went down.
I have no pity for irresponsible parents that put guns in the hands of children. They are much more to blame than their own son, even if he was the one to pull the trigger.
- They for sure own a lot of the blame but how exactly are they more responsible than the shooter? If that's not hyperbole then I think you're way off base. Enabling is never worse than the action itself in my opinion.
  
  Ethan told his mother that he was having mental issues like hearing demon voices and having violent thoughts. They knew he had tortured animals. They bought him a gun and laughed about it when he got caught buying ammunition while at school. They were drunks who did not really give a shit and enabled someone who was very clearly not mentally well.
  He has gotten mental help now that he is in prison and he regrets what he did and agrees with the sentencing. The bare minimum of mental health would have avoided this.
  
  He was 15, most likely a victim of intense bullying or some other trauma. This doesn't excuse what he did but he needed help, not a gun.
  I sometimes see people that commit shootings as people with heavy mental disorders and not outright evil as I would see a serial killer for instance. Obviously its very case per case and I'm making huge assumptions about the person.
  
  Because they are the parents and raised him seen the signs refused to get him help and then gave him a gun. They created a monster and then gave a loaded weapon.
  
  Enabling is always worse than the action itself.
Now I get that I'm a European and so my views on this are a little different than maybe the average American, but seriously what 15-year-old needs a semi automatic for their birthday?
Hell what 15-year-old needs a gun at all.
If I had a kid and they showed a genuine interest in guns, I'd surely start them off with something like a pistol, not go all the way up to military grade instantly.
- semi-automatic doesn't equate to military grade. It is a pistol. it just has the feature that chambers a bullet as the shell is expelled.
- A pistol is much more highly regulated than a semi-automatic rifle in almost every country, and for good reason: a pistol is a semi automatic weapon that's very easy to conceal.
  Semi automatic means everytime you pull the trigger a bullet is fired. It's very standard for hunting and target shooting. A pistol itself is a semi automatic weapon and much easier to conceal.
  There are definitely large aesthetic differences between a basic hunting rifle and "militarized" semi automatic weapons, but the actual mechanism and result are fundamentally identical. I'm not saying aesthetics don't matter though since it gives the gun a different "purpose".
  Other than semi automatic you have "single action" which is when you pull the trigger to shoot, but then you have to physically move a mechanism to reset the gun before you can shoot again. Mostly common in shotguns and some rifles. There is also fully automatic which fires multiple rounds as long as you hold the trigger down.
- Pistol would be a tricky choice too, easier to conceal, and more than most pistols are also semi automatic. Bolt action small caliber would be a decent start I'd say.
- Just to be clear, nearly every (edit: modern) handgun you've ever seen, pistols included, is almost certainly a semi-automatic. I'm sure there are exceptions, but AFAIK, any (edit: modern) handgun that's not a revolver (or something weird like a derringer) is going to be semi-auto.
  As someone who grew up around guns (but is not currently a gun owner), and if I planned to buy my child a gun prior to adulthood, I probably would start my kid with a BB gun at a younger age, then likely a revolver before going to semi-auto, but I wouldn't feel like either of those are choices that are the only safe ones. (If we've cleared the hurdle of considering a 15 year old owning a gun to be safe at all.)
  Revolver:
- I agree with you, but the logic (if you could call it that at this point) is that long guns are for hunting whereas pistols are much more concealable. Of course they didn't feel the need to specify a difference between hunting rifles and 30-round semiauto so... Yeah. Murica I guess.
I think this is great. Maybe if parents start getting charged for their kids shooting up schools, less kids will have access to guns.
I wonder how many school shooting are done by people underage.
They failed or outright set up their child. That child needs intensive therapy and love. We fail as a society.
Why did the boy shoot up his school in the first place?
- The type of people who shoot up schools don't need good reasons. In this case it was because "the voices" told him to, which really tells you everything you need to know about the case.
  
  Are you sure? The article alludes to him being bullied, and if that was his motivation, then the blame lies far more on the school and his bullies than even his shitty parents.
  Now go ahead and get mad at me for stating such. Go ahead. That ought to be good for a laugh

38 comments