In a landmark case in Michigan, James Crumbley was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for his indirect role in the tragic 2021 Oxford High School shooting perpetrated by his son, which resulted in the deaths of four students. This conviction aligns with that of his wife, Jennifer Crumbley, each held accountable for their failure to secure a firearm and address their son’s evident mental health crisis. The jury’s decision marks the first time parents have been found criminally liable in connection with a mass school shooting committed by their child. The case sets a precedent for parental responsibility in such incidents, particularly in Michigan, where allowing access to minors has been made a crime in the state’s statutes.
James Crumbley, 47, faced the verdict with disbelief, shaking his head as he was declared guilty and subsequently handcuffed in court. This outcome comes after intense scrutiny of the Crumbleys’ actions leading up to the shooting, including their neglect to remove their son from school after being alerted to his disturbing behavior and violent drawings earlier that day. Despite a school counselor’s recommendation for immediate psychological intervention, Ethan Crumbley was allowed to remain in school, where he later initiated the deadly attack. The school is also being sued in civil court for allowing Crumbley to return to class that day.
The prosecution honed in on the Crumbleys’ missteps, particularly their purchase of the Sig Sauer 9mm handgun used in the shooting just days before the incident and their failure to secure it properly at home. Ethan, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, had unrestricted access to the weapon, a point underscored by the discovery of an unlocked gun case and unused gun lock at the Crumbley residence following the tragedy.
Ethan Crumbley’s trial revealed a young man in turmoil, expressing in his journal a desperate plea for help with his mental health issues, which he felt were ignored by his parents. Now 17, Ethan is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole, having pleaded guilty to murder and terrorism charges.
The convictions of James and Jennifer Crumbley, who each face a potential minimum sentence of up to 10 years in prison, underscore the legal and moral responsibilities of gun ownership and parental oversight. Their trials have sparked widespread discussion about the measures needed to prevent such tragedies, including more stringent gun safety laws and enhanced mental health support for youth.
In the wake of the verdict, the broader community continues to grapple with the consequences of gun violence in schools. The case against the Crumbleys, as reported by the Associated Press and other news outlets, serves as a somber reminder of the critical role parents and guardians play in recognizing and addressing the warning signs of violence and mental health distress.
Don’t forget folks, NOTHING will happen to the school administrators who let him go back to class!
Also, don’t forget the parents of a gangbanger who shoots a bunch of people will NEVER be prosecuted like this. Period.
School administrators and teachers are government employees. And government employees are never prosecuted or held accountable. Unless they fall out of political favor. And that is very rare.
And yes, I do look forward to the hundreds. Or thousands of black single mothers. To be held accountable for the crimes of their children.
Because the h 0m0 sexu@ls and @theists have attacked the traditional family of one man and one woman, for many decades now.
And they disagree with the christians. When the christians said a father is necessary and the family.
The libertarians liberals and the left, will always prefer the discipline coming from the State.
Instead of the discipline of the private individual family.
Do you even know what a libertarian is? Because you surely don’t know what they believe.
to Papa Bear
Show me 10 examples of libertarians supporting the traditional family of one man and one woman.
You will not find any. But you will find them supporting a woman, and her life style choice. When she has 5 kids from 5 different men. And never getting married.
The libertarians will certainly support that. They are non-judgmental. They are incapable of saying when something is wrong.
Papa Bear you are wasting your time. This wants Government control in every aspect of your life he does not agree with.
Chris is right as Libertarians we believe you should be allowed to live your life as you see fit. Where he gets confused or can’t understand is that as Libertarians we don’t feel it’s the Government’s responsibility to take care of your poor life’s decisions. He seems to think that because we let someone live how they want to we also should pay for it.
It’s pretty funny to watch him demand the Governement get out of his life while simultaneously demanding they get heavily involved in others lives he does not agree with.
So his parents should punish him for murdering those kids? Especially after they not only bought him a gun but gave him easy access to it? I must of missed the part where the Government Employees did this.
As always your posts make zero sense.
Parents this negligent should most certainly be held accountable for their children’s actions. Including ghetto kids.
As usual your strawman response is pretty weak.
The “champagne Libertarians” can certainly afford their policies. Since they don’t live anywhere near where they would be implemented.
You are not a supporter of the first amendment. When it is used to criticize the questionable sexual activities of people. And by all means, go ahead and criticize religious people.
Because you do have a first amendment right to do that still.
School deferred to the parents’ judgement. From reports, school wasn’t aware that he had access to a gun, parents chose not to inform them.
IIRC, same parents tried to flee after the shooting, abandoning their mentally ill son to deal with the aftermath on his own. Not the most responsible people that anyone should sympathize with.
There are lots of irresponsible parents, and these two sound pretty terrible at parenting. But as the OP pointed out, the majority of them don’t get prosecute for the crimes of their children.
Ethan was prosecuted as an adult. Adults are responsible for their own actions. Either Ethan was an adult and responsible for his own actions, or he was a child and his parents were responsible for his actions. Legally you can’t have it both ways. One of the two cases should be overturned on appeal.
These “parents” were aware of their son’s maladjustment to society, beyond that, they were afraid of him. At the time of the incident they both admitted to buying the pistol FOR their son. To divert their criminality they now claimed that the son’s use was unauthorized. Go directly to jail, do not pass go do not collect $200.
100 percent, this.
In my uncertified and useless legal opinion, the state loses the opportunity to prosecute the parents for the child’s crimes when the state chooses to prosecute the child as an adult. Michigan now has access laws (unconstitutional, in my interpretation), but those were not on the books when the crime was committed.
In the words of ARFCOM, get both! If you come to me saying you want to kill people and dream of doing it. Then I give you a gun and ammo, then you go kill people. I fully expect that I will also be prosecuted and go to jail.
The parents literally enabled their kid to kill after he begged them for help. I’ve never seen a more deserving pair of parents go to jail than these two.
Too late now but parents should have taught angry ethan to Always keep a firearm pointed in a safe direction, otherwise kiddies if you fly off the handle LE can make a miserable Teletubby out of you…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=iDJjin_rgrI&feature=shared
And did the school have a culture where bullying by the team jerk-jocks was not only openly condoned but actively encouraged?
“You might think bullying is fun until your former victim is chasing you down with a gun.”
Theres always two sides to a coin.
Good point SC👍
The school board and the government employees involved in the Uvalde school shooting case. And the school board and the government employees, involved in the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, school shooting case in Florida.
They all still have their jobs.
And if the parents discipline their children in a way that the state disagrees with. Those school government employees will have the parents prosecuted.
A single mother begged the State to help her with her mentally ill son. Right up to the day he blew her head off with a shotgun.
Before he murdered all those children at a Connecticut elementary school.
Support for this claim?
“It was one of two times Adam might have received the psychiatric treatment he needed. His mother, Nancy, refused them both.”
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/new-report-adam-lanza-did-not-just-snap/
Find/post a reputable reference (PBS does NOT qualify as reputable).
Ahh, but random person commenting on TTAG is good enough for you.
“random person commenting“
Hey, that’s the highest standard of evidence for the conservative extremists.
‘Many people are saying… ‘
Hell, they staged a failed insurrection based on a pack of lies from known liars.
to neiowa
Normally I would never trust PBS. They are a government paid for propaganda organ. But Anything that makes a single mother look bad they will cover it up.
Because they hate the traditional family of one man and one woman.
I like this source.
From 2017
“Police were warned that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter had threatened to kill his mother and students before the 2012 massacre, according to newly revealed FBI documents”
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/fbi-newtown-police-knew-adam-lanza-planned-to-shoot-and-kill-mother-and-students/
This was not a simple case of a child getting access to a gun.
These parents were willfully ignoring the child’s pleas for help.
This is way different than a single mother neglecting her child who then joins a gang and commits crimes.
These parents did everything, including leaving an unsecured and loaded gun in the house when they knew their child was homicidal.
They were called to the school for the child’s behavior, and didn’t bother checking on the location of the gun before they left the house.
Don’t forget that you’ll also be fighting your insurance company lawyers who want to get out of paying anything. A few years back, one of my neighbors had their truck stolen out of their garage after a break in, and the thieves got into a hit and run with it. After it was abandoned, another miscreant re-stole it and caused property damage. The insurance lawyers claimed the truck owner was negligent in securing the vehicle keys and held up payment for over a year, causing untold lawyer expenses to my neighbor who had to countersue for vehicle replacement and damage reparations. Luckily, neither thief had time to discover his cased broken-down SxS shotgun in an underseat storage bin.
If these cases survive the appeals process. It will certainly put pressure on parents to finally start being the responsible grown up in the relationship rather than just another ‘friend’. Thus holding their children responsible for their actions and choices. Otherwise as parents they may well be held accountable for the criminal choices their children make. This entire situation is just another consequence of the modern liberalism approach to child rearing.
Was mommy responsible for the deranged lunatic 15 year old? Lots of speculation the young Crumby er Crumbly was born with fetal alcohol syndrome. No sympathy for the parent’s. I knew what my minor sons were up to at 15! At least the latest batch🙄
I wonder if this will set a precedent for holding judges criminally liable when a violent criminal that they have allowed to be free on bail, or even no bail, kills someone?
Didn’t even think of that. WOW.
They’ll never eat their own, but man that’d be a case for the ages that would show the emperor had no clothes.
Judges only hold themselves liable for for two things: jack and $#!@.
no – and there is no precedent because duh – maybe if the judge is the offenders parent and the judge entrusts him at home with a Sig. Then yes maybe
Nope…Judges cannot be held responsible for the rulings they make. They are protected by 2 Supreme Court rulings granting them Qualified Immunity. Just like elected politicians who pass laws that violate the Constitutional Rights of citizens.
SCOTUS is hearing a qualified immunity case this week, Gonzalez v. Trevino:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-1025/293024/20231211163518776_Brief%20for%20Petitioner.pdf
Perhaps they’ll begin to move away from it as currently applied.
Um … when you flip the channel over to the masking and covid stuff don’t we hear a lot about how schools should not be making decisions and parental rights are being threatened? What about parental responsibilities?
They had an obviously psycho kid and let him have free access to a Sig at home. When meanwhile any NRA gun safety brief go over “secure your guns”. Good conviction.
If this dope was a charged as an adult why would his patents be responsible for anything he does? Charged a a juvenile then yes they are responsible but his sentence would have been drastically different. How can they have it both ways in this case?
It’s the often-invoked Because FYTW clause. It’s somewhere in the fine print of the “Constitution.”
Up here in Mn. we recently had a triple homicide-by-felon of 3 first responders. At the news conference reporters asked numerous times where the also deceased felon got his five guns that were located throughout the house… surprise, surprise, surprise, one of his baby-mommas straw bought them for him and is now facing a 15 year prison charge. Since she and her two of the seven kids in the house lived there, I’d bet she never sees a day of jail time, but I do expect that the gun manufacturers and dealers will be made ” examples ” of, this being a lib-trifecta state and all.
“young man in turmoil” – a product of the government schools in a prog state. Shocking.
And remember, we have to ban AR platform guns like the one not used in this case because reasons.
Maybe the parents were charged as they were, in fact, accomplices, to the crime. Likely similar to multiple yoots involved in a crime when one of the yoots are kills someone. They are all charged for the murder.
“…faced the verdict with disbelief, shaking his head…”
You ain’t the only one shaking your head, buddy.
Remember, Michigan is run by liberal demo-rats. While I think the Parents of this murdering kid hold some responsibility for this crime, so do others involved here. This whole thing was badly handled by everyone involved. Convicting the parents of manslaughter, might just be a bad legal president to set.
Gun ownership REQUIRES responsibility. Show me where the NRA or any other pro 2A group disagrees.
You can’t.
Life in prison that would be the death of me for sure.
Cruel and unusual punishment. What twisted fck thought that up? Kinda like God punishing you for eternity
If your so bad you’ve gotta be locked up for life just killem and get it over with.
25,30,40, 58years he dead now. Hope them years in the penitentiary taught him a lesson. Duh
Been saying for a long time….If the kid does the crime, parents share the time. A little family togetherness, which was probably missing all along. Anti-gunners have tried to sue gun manufacturers for the damage caused by their legal inanimate objects incapable of acting on their own. So, parents producing defective products…offspring…that act by their own volition, should be held for the acts of their products.
It isn’t man’s laws on paper that keep kids from committing murder, it’s the laws that were written into kids’ hearts while they were sitting around the dinner table.
I wish all the guns in the world were just for hunting. And I wish the world is in peace. I can’t give up my rifle cause I really like hunting. Especially I like go hunting with my CVLIFE 1-8X24 rifle scope and red dot magnifier. They’re really cool and help me hunt a lot. https://www.cvlife.com/products/cvlife-bearpower-1-8×24-rifle-scope-with-30mm-cantilever-mount
https://www.cvlife.com/products/cvlife-auto-brightness-adjustment-red-dot-sight-with-3x-magnifier-combo
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