San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Maybe mom’s conviction will stop next shooting
Finally, a parent has been held to account for a school shooting. A guilty verdict, like the one this past week against Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of a Michigan teenager who murdered four students in 2021 in the state’s deadliest school shooting, was overdue.
This is the first time a parent was convicted for their role in contributing to a mass shooting.
Crumbley was found guilty Tuesday on four counts of involuntary manslaughter: one for each student her son, Ethan, murdered in the mass shooting at Oxford High School outside of Detroit on Nov. 30, 2021. He was 15 at the time. In 2022, Ethan pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Ethan’s father, James Crumbley, will be tried next month.
Some experts told the New York Times they don’t expect this case to have a ripple effect when it comes to charging parents of adolescent mass shooters. I hope they’re wrong. Parents of students who lose their children to school shooters deserve justice. The threat of prosecuting parents could prevent some school shootings.
Prosecutors in Michigan presented an abundance of evidence, including alarming texts and details from a meeting with school officials just a few hours before the shooting. They made it clear Crumbley ignored red flags. She knew her son’s mental state, and yet she failed to intervene.
The day before the shooting, the school notified Crumbley via email and voicemail that a teacher saw him searching on his phone for ammunition. She texted her son saying, “LOL. I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught.”
Crumbley testified that on the morning of the shooting, she was summoned to the school for a meeting.
During that meeting, school officials shared violent sketches her son made on his math assignment. They included an image that looked like a gun his parents had just purchased for him, a bullet and a bleeding person with two gunshot wounds.
“The thoughts won’t stop. Help me,” he wrote. “Blood everywhere. My life is useless.”
The teen was begging for help. He wanted to be stopped. But his parents bought him the gun, which he called “my new beauty” on Instagram, four days before the shooting.
By 1:22 p.m. on Nov. 30, 2021, when Crumbley texted her son, “Ethan, don’t do it,” he had shot 11 people.
After the verdict, the jury foreman told NBC News, “It was very difficult. It wasn’t an easy decision. The thing that really hammered it home was that she was the last adult with the gun.”
Crumbley’s sentencing is scheduled for April 9.
Of course, it’s hard not to think of the Uvalde school shooting on May 24, 2022, in which an 18-year-old killed 19 students and two teachers.
Many of the family members of the Uvalde victims, as well as families of other school shooting victims across the country, celebrated the verdict on social media.
“Now lock up your (expletive) guns, or you to will be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter if your child commits these heinous acts,” Brett Cross, guardian of 10-year-old Uvalde victim Uziyah Garcia, posted Tuesday to X.
One of the lessons from the Crumbley case is that responsibility falls on parents and other family members to respond to warning signs and intervene with a loved one. Of the multitude of people to blame for failing to prevent the carnage in Uvalde, perhaps the shooter’s family could have stopped it had they recognized and reported the warning signs of the shooter’s “pathway to violence,” as Department of Public Safety officials described it.
America is trapped in a crisis of preventable mass shootings. Firearms were the leading cause of death for children and teens in 2020 and 2021, surpassing motor vehicle deaths, cancer and drownings.
In Crumbley’s case, the final sentencing will not be enough. It will never bring back the innocent lives lost. But hopefully, the sentencing is a wake-up call to parents.
Lock guns away from your children. Get your children mental health help. Alert authorities at the first sign of danger. Take threats and warning signs seriously. Because if you don’t, you could be held accountable.