In an uncommon and highly watched case, a jury on Tuesday found a Michigan mother guilty of manslaughter in connection with her teenage son’s school mass shooting.
Jennifer Crumbley, 45, and her husband James, 47, are the first parents of a school shooter to be charged with felony manslaughter in the United States for their child’s acts.
Jennifer Crumbley was found guilty of all four charges of involuntary manslaughter after a jury in Pontiac, Michigan, deliberated for approximately a day and a half.
She is scheduled to be sentenced on April 9 and faces up to 15 years in jail. Her husband will be tried separately in March.
Ethan Crumbley, their 17-year-old son, is receiving a life sentence for the November 30, 2021 shooting at Oxford High School that killed four pupils.
The Crumbleys bought their son the 9mm SIG Sauer weapon he used in the crime and were accused of ignoring warnings about his mental health issues.
In closing remarks, prosecutor Karen McDonald told the jury that Jennifer Crumbley failed to “exercise ordinary care when the smallest, tragically simple thing could have prevented it.”
“She could have locked the ammunition. “She could have locked the gun,” McDonald explained. “She could have told the school that they had just given him a pistol.
“She could have told the school about her son being in crisis previously and asking for help.”
Shannon Smith, the defense counsel, maintained that Crumbley cannot be held accountable for her son’s acts.
“No one could have expected this,” Smith remarked. “Can every parent really be responsible for everything their children do?”
“This case is a very dangerous one for parents out there,” she said.
Early Christmas present
Crumbley said during her trial that her husband bought the rifle for their son as an early Christmas present a few days before the attack, and she took him to a shooting range the next day.
She stated that her husband was in charge of storing the firearm at their home, and it was intended for her son “to use at the shooting range only.”
She claimed she had no reason to suppose her kid was capable of doing such a horrific act.
“I wish he would have killed us instead,” she went on to say.
The Crumbleys were summoned to the school on the day of the shooting because a teacher was “alarmed” by a violent sketch she discovered on Ethan’s desk.
The drawing was shown to the parents, who were urged to take their son to counselling.
They apparently refused to take their son home, and he returned to school.
He then entered a bathroom, emerged with the rifle he had stashed in his backpack, and fired more than 30 shots.
Following a large number of deadly firearms incidents involving young people, demand has grown in the United States to punish parents who allow their children to obtain weapons.
The father of an Illinois man accused of killing seven people in July 2022 pled guilty in November to misdemeanour charges of “reckless conduct” for assisting his son in obtaining the assault gun used in the mass shooting.
A Virginia woman whose six-year-old son shot and seriously injured his teacher was recently sentenced to two years in jail for felony child negligence and 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to illegally procuring the pistol.