The parents of a Michigan boy who shot and killed four of his classmates are scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday after a jury found them guilty of manslaughter, but they will be held responsible in the school shooting. is a rare case.
Jennifer and James Crumbley, who were tried separately this year, could both face up to 15 years in prison in connection with the 2021 shooting of their son Ethan.
Ethan Crumbley was 15 years old at the time of the Oxford High School shooting.
He pleaded guilty to four charges, including first-degree murder, in 2022 and was sentenced to life in prison without parole in December.
At the trial of Jennifer Crumbley, 46, and James Crumbley, 47, prosecutors said their parents had given their children guns as Christmas presents, and that their mental health had deteriorated and they were at risk of becoming violent. He said he was guilty of criminal negligence for ignoring certain signs.
The parents’ lawyers argued that the mother and father could not have imagined that their son would commit a mass shooting.
The United States, a country with deep-rooted gun violence, has experienced a spate of school shootings over the years, many of them carried out by current or former students.
AP
The Crumbleys are the first parents to be charged with manslaughter in their child’s school shooting.
There was little precedent in the United States for the Crumbleys to be criminally charged.
Experts and gun safety advocates say the case is an important step in holding gun-owning parents accountable for their children’s school violence.
A study by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security found that about 75% of school shooters obtained their weapons at home.
James Crumbley bought a 9mm semi-automatic handgun as a Christmas present for Ethan just four days before the Nov. 30, 2021, shooting.
On the morning of the assault, Ethan’s parents were called to their son’s school after a teacher found violent messages and drawings on Ethan’s school work, prosecutors said during the trial.
The Crumbleys were told that Ethan needed immediate counseling.
But prosecutors said the couple resisted, took the boy home that day and did not search his backpack or ask him about a gun they knew he had access to.
Ethan Crumbley returned to class.
Prosecutors said the man then exited the bathroom with a gun and began firing.
