Shooter’s parents jailed for 10 years

The first parents convicted in a US mass school shooting were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison yesterday as a Michigan judge lamented missed opportunities that could have prevented their teenage son from possessing a gun and killing four students in 2021.

“These convictions are not about poor parenting,” Oakland County Judge Cheryl Matthews said. “These convictions confirm repeated acts, or lack of acts, that could have halted an oncoming runaway train.”

The hearing in a crowded, tense courtroom was the climax of an extraordinary effort to make others besides the 15-year-old attacker criminally responsible for a school shooting.

Jennifer and James Crumbley did not know Ethan Crumbley had a handgun — he called it his “beauty” — in a backpack when he was

The blood of our children is on your hands, too. Craig Shilling, victim’s father

dropped off at Oxford High School. But prosecutors convinced jurors the parents still played a disastrous role in the violence.

The Crumbleys were accused of not securing the newly purchased gun at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health, especially when confronted with a chilling classroom drawing earlier that same day.

The Crumbleys earlier this year were convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

“The blood of our children is on your hands, too,” Craig Shilling told the couple, wearing a hoodie with an image of son Justin Shilling on it.

Prosecutor Karen McDonald asked the judge to stretch beyond the sentencing guidelines and order a minimum 10-year prison sentence.

Defence attorneys sought to keep the Crumbleys out of prison, noting they have already spent nearly twoand-a-half years in jail, unable to afford a US$500,000 ($824,416) bond after their arrest. They will get credit for that jail time and become eligible for parole after serving 10 years in custody. Before being sentenced, James Crumbley stood and insisted he did not know his son was troubled.

“My heart is really broken for everybody involved . . . I have cried for you and the loss of your children more times than I can count,” he said.

Ethan Crumbley, now 17, is serving a life sentence for murder and other crimes.