Father of Michigan school shooter found guilty of manslaughter

A Michigan jury on Thursday found the father of a teenager guilty of manslaughter in the shooting deaths of four classmates at a high school near Detroit, with prosecutors saying he was responsible because he and his wife gave him The son had a gun but ignored the warning signs. Violence.

James Crumbley, 47, was found guilty at a trial a month after his wife, Jennifer Crumbley, was found guilty of manslaughter in the shooting.

James Crumbley faces four counts of manslaughter, one for each victim in the 2021 Oxford High School shooting.

Jurors began deliberations Wednesday.

James and Jennifer Crumbley will both be sentenced on April 9. Manslaughter carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.

The couple’s son, Ethan, was 15 when a semiautomatic pistol shooting occurred at Oxford High School. In 2022, he pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and other charges and was sentenced in December to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The United States is a country with persistent gun violence, with a series of school shootings over the years often involving current or former students. The Crumbleys are the first parents to be charged with manslaughter in a school shooting involving a child.

“This is a very shocking and rare set of facts,” Oakland County, Michigan, prosecutor Karen McDonald told the jury during closing arguments Wednesday.

McDonald said James Crumbley repeatedly ignored warning signs that his son was deeply troubled, failed to get him the help he needed and failed to take adequate steps to store firearms safely at home.

“He did nothing over and over again,” McDonald said.

McDonald also presented the jury with text messages Ethan Crumbley sent to friends and diaries he wrote in the months before the shooting, in which he talked about wanting medical care and hearing voices, but he Worried that his parents would be “angry.”

At one point, Ethan asked James Crabley to take him to a doctor, but his father “gave me some medicine and told me to swallow it,” according to text messages McDonald sent to friends.

Defense attorney Mariel Lehman argued that James Crumbley could not have foreseen that his son would carry out a mass shooting.

“James had no idea his son was going through difficulties,” Lehman told jurors during closing arguments, saying there was no evidence James knew the contents of his son’s text messages or diaries.

‘help me’

Gun safety experts say they hope the Crumbley trial will be a wake-up call for parents to better protect weapons in their homes.

According to government research, about 75 percent of school shooters obtained the gun used in the attack from their own home.

According to prosecutors, James Crumbley purchased the handgun used in the attack four days before the Nov. 30, 2021, shooting.

On the morning of the shooting, a teacher discovered Ethan Crumbley’s painting, which depicted a pistol, a bullet and a bleeding figure with the words “blood everywhere.” , “My life is useless” and “The thoughts won’t stop – help me.”

According to prosecutors, the Crumbleys were summoned to school that morning and told Ethan needed counseling and they needed to take him home. But prosecutors said the couple refused to take their son home, did not search his backpack or question him about the gun.

The Crumbleys both disputed that account at trial, saying teachers at the meeting agreed that Ethan could remain at school that day and that at no time did they believe he posed a danger to his classmates.

According to prosecutors, Ethan Crumbley returned to class, then walked out of the bathroom with a gun and began shooting.