On Tuesday, the parents of a teenager who carried out a deadly school shooting in the US state of Michigan were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in jail in an extraordinary and carefully attended trial.
Jennifer Crumbley, 46, and her husband James, 47, became the first parents of a school shooter to be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the United States for their child’s acts.
Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Matthews sentenced them to 10 and 15 years in jail, with credit for the 28 months they had already served.
Their 17-year-old son Ethan is receiving a life sentence for the November 30, 2021, shooting that killed four students and injured seven others at Oxford High School, 45 miles (70 kilometers) north of Detroit.
“Parents are not expected to be psychic,” Matthews said at an emotional sentencing hearing in Pontiac, Michigan, which was attended by the victims’ parents.
“But these convictions are not about poor parenting,” Matthews stated. “These convictions confirm repeated acts, or lack of acts, that could have halted an oncoming runaway train.”
Craig Shilling, the father of Justin Shilling, 17, one of the deceased teenagers, addressed the court before sentence, telling the Crumbleys, “The blood of our children is on your hands.”
Steve St. Juliana, the father of another victim, 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana, stated that her murder “has destroyed a large portion of my soul.”
“I am forever denied the chance to hold her or her future children in my arms,” he said.
‘Alarmed’
During separate trials, the Crumbleys were accused of ignoring warnings about their son’s mental health issues.
Jennifer Crumbley testified during her trial that her husband gave their son the 9mm SIG Sauer handgun he used in the attack as an early Christmas present a few days before.
The day after the purchase, she took the youngster to the shooting range.
The Crumbleys were summoned to the school on the day of the shooting after a teacher got concerned about a violent sketch she discovered on Ethan’s desk.
They were shown the drawing and told they needed to bring the boy to counseling. The parents 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 in the United States, pressure has grown 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 misdemeanor 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. She was then sentenced to another 21 months in jail after pleading guilty to illegally procuring the pistol.
