This is a sad day for the right-wing today, as the mother of the Michigan school shooter is being held accountable. Jennifer Crumbley was found guilty of 4 counts of involuntary manslaughter. Back in 2021, Laura Ingraham said that charging the parents in the Michigan school shooting case was a political statement by liberal prosecutors. That's not what this is, though.
Most gun owners have disagreed with the NRA and right-wing media for years. Keeping guns locked up isn't difficult, and the Crumbleys took it a step further by the father purchasing the weapon for his son, then his kid took the lives of four students, 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin, 16-year-old Tate Myre, 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana, and 17-year-old Justin Shilling.
Mom of the year, Jennifer Crumbley, reportedly made an Instagram post that said she was at a gun range shooting a weapon that was her son's Christmas present. There were so many red flags that the Crumbleys ignored. And if you can't practice gun safety, then you shouldn't have guns, and if you do, then you shouldn't have kids.
ABC News reports:
A jury has found Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley, guilty of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the shooting deaths of four students at Oxford High School in November 2021.
Crumbley was found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the shooting, one for each victim: Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Justin Shilling, 17; and Hana St. Juliana, 14.
The jury deliberated for roughly 11 hours, beginning on Monday morning. Sentencing is scheduled for April 9.
Jennifer and James Crumbley are a rare case of parents being charged in connection with a shooting carried out by their son. James Crumbley, who also faces four counts of involuntary manslaughter, will have a separate trial in March.
Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 years old at the time of the shooting, has been sentenced to life in prison for killing four students and injuring seven others at Oxford High School. He had pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including first-degree premeditated murder and terrorism causing death.
In a dayslong trial, prosecutors presented damning evidence of the Crumbley parents -- who bought their son the gun used in the shooting -- failing to respond to warning signs exhibited by the shooter prior to the attack.
School officials had called the Crumbley parents to the school the morning of the shooting after finding violent drawings he had done on a school assignment. He was also caught searching online for bullets at school, watching shooting videos in class, and drawing violent images on several other papers.
School officials testified that the parents chose not to take their son home despite the school telling them to get him immediate help and offering them facilities that provided same-day mental health care services.
The parents told the school they could not take him home because they both had to return to work and that if he left school he would walk home and be alone. School officials, who were worried about his mental health, did not think it was a good idea for him to be alone since they were concerned he was considering suicide.
The parents chose to send him back to class and told the school that they would get him mental health care.
CllickOnDetroit reports:
Reasonable care involves a parent's duty to take action to control a child when it's necessary to prevent harm. Gross negligence means "willfully disregarding the results to others that might result from an act or failure to act."
In other words, prosecutors had to show that Crumbley knew or should have known that her son was a danger to others and taken action to prevent him from being able to take that harmful action.
Crumbley's guilt also needed to be proved beyond a "reasonable doubt."
"A person accused of a crime is presumed to be innocent," Matthews said. "This means you must start with the presumption that the defendant is innocent. This presumption continues throughout the trial and entitles the defendant to a verdict of not guilty, unless you're satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that she is guilty."
Matthews said in order to reach a guilty verdict, each element of involuntary manslaughter must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, which is defined as "a doubt based on reason and common sense."
Crumbley's husband, James Crumbley, will face a separate trial in the near future. The pair were originally going to be tried together, but they asked for separate trials in November, and a judge granted their request.
This will open the doors for more cases such as this one, where the parents ignored all warning signs. This won't bring those kids back to life, but perhaps, just maybe, in our gun-saturated country, gun-owning parents will practice gun safety. It's not hard. Imagine handing your mentally ill child a loaded gun.
