Oxford High School, Michigan, school shooting.

[TurkeysGhost]

Just saying "the gun is Ethan's" doesn't really mean anything. In legal terms, the gun belonged to the father. In practical terms, the father kept control over the weapon and it was used under his supervision as Ethan's guardian, also legal. If it had been tossed to Ethan with a "have fun, son", then it is all bad.

Kind of like a parent buying a car for their underage kid. The parents bought it as "the kid's car", and the kid may treat it as such till the legal change of ownership. Also, shades of Kyle Rittenhouse.

The obvious difference being that cars have title documents that unambiguously declare the owner and firearms do not.

 

[Thermal]

The obvious difference being that cars have title documents that unambiguously declare the owner and firearms do not.

Which is a yet another great argument for why they should.

 

[Meadmaker]

Obviously not that the little punk didn't violate law, or the father should be off the hook for improper securing. But those would be different laws.

Sadly, in Michigan, the improper securing would be no laws.

ETA: There have been bills proposed in recent weeks to change that. They're being debated.

 

[Meadmaker]

The obvious difference being that cars have title documents that unambiguously declare the owner and firearms do not.

In Michigan, I think handguns do, although I would not swear 100% to that. I know that they have to be registered.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

In all honesty, the straw purchase part is a bit of a red herring since no one is being charged with it. At least as of now, I suppose the feds could be waiting to see how the rest of it shakes out, but getting pegged with a straw purchase is pretty low on the concern scale for the Crumbley's.

The question is will the prosecution have enough to convict the parents. I hope they do because I think they deserve prison time. They were obviously neglecting their child every chance they got.

I get the impression that there isn't an attempt to point out specific acts that were illegal, but rather lay out the totality of evidence of their indifference to both their son's mental health and access to unsecured firearms to the point it constituted criminal negligence.

Each element on its own may not be sufficiently idiotic to be a crime, but all together perhaps they feel they can convince the jury.

 

[Meadmaker]

I get the impression that there isn't an attempt to point out specific acts that were illegal, but rather lay out the totality of evidence of their indifference to both their son's mental health and access to unsecured firearms constituted criminal negligence.

Each element on its own may not be sufficiently idiotic to be a crime, but all together perhaps they feel they can convince the jury.

That's basically it.

If he hadn't killed anyone, nothing the parents did, or didn't do, could be prosecuted.

 

[plague311]

I get the impression that there isn't an attempt to point out specific acts that were illegal, but rather lay out the totality of evidence of their indifference to both their son's mental health and access to unsecured firearms constituted criminal negligence.

Each element on its own may not be sufficiently idiotic to be a crime, but all together perhaps they feel they can convince the jury.

Here's to hoping they're right. Reading through that article was pretty damning, which it's supposed to be by designed, but I'd think there's some charge they can get hit and convicted on. I just don't know what it would be.

 

[mgidm86]

I think that whether the parents bought the gun for Ethan or they bought it for themselves and didn't secure it properly shouldn't make a difference (in my made up little world anyways). Both should be crimes when that gun is used as it was.

 

[plague311]

I think that whether the parents bought the gun for Ethan or they bought it for themselves and didn't secure it properly shouldn't make a difference (in my made up little world anyways). Both should be crimes when that gun is used as it was.

I don't even know if they should focus on the gun as much as on the overall neglect of Ethan. He knew he was disturbed, the school knew he had issues, and he begged his parents to help him. The gun aside, I think there's a decent case for their responsibility in all this.

 

[theprestige]

I don't even know if they should focus on the gun as much as on the overall neglect of Ethan. He knew he was disturbed, the school knew he had issues, and he begged his parents to help him. The gun aside, I think there's a decent case for their responsibility in all this.

I'm content for now to focus on the specific neglect of Ethan, the day of the shooting. Specifically, neglecting to search his backpack and locker before sending him back unsupervised. Maybe he didn't have a gun. Maybe he left it at home. Maybe he stashed it somewhere else on campus. And maybe, just maybe, this obviously upset kid expressing obvious murder fantasies, had a **** ing gun right there with him. Shouldn't someone at least have checked?

 

[Meadmaker]

I'm content for now to focus on the specific neglect of Ethan, the day of the shooting. Specifically, neglecting to search his backpack and locker before sending him back unsupervised. Maybe he didn't have a gun. Maybe he left it at home. Maybe he stashed it somewhere else on campus. And maybe, just maybe, this obviously upset kid expressing obvious murder fantasies, had a **** ing gun right there with him. Shouldn't someone at least have checked?

I know it's pretty standard practice among psychologists when someone is perceived as potentially suicidal to ask if they have access to guns. I find it appalling that the counselors didn't ask. They knew he was suicidal. They demanded that he get counseling within 48 hours, but they didn't ask about guns or weapons.

When it first happened, I prefaced statements like that with saying "If they didn't ask....", but I think we've heard enough about the meeting that I'm confident in concluding that they never asked the question.

 

[plague311]

If someone wants to blame the school, blame the school. I don't personally agree, I think the problem was with the parents. They could have gotten him help, they could have told the school he has access to guns, they could have paid attention when he told them of hallucinations, and they could have told him something other than "suck it up".

If I was a school counselor and was in a situation like this where both parents and a student are in the office literally talking about guns, I would expect the parents to tell us. The parents went out of their way to ignore his behavior.

I guess opinions will just differ. I can't imagine charging the school for something the parents should have covered a long time ago. I do think the counselor should have asked if there were guns, but I'm not placing blame on the school. The parents had every single opportunity to stop this and they just didn't.

ETA: Sure, if you want to boil it down to that day we could put more onus on the school. I always feel like these situations are viewed in a vacuum. There's way more than that morning, and way more than that counselor to blame.

 

[theprestige]

If someone wants to blame the school, blame the school. I don't personally agree, I think the problem was with the parents. They could have gotten him help, they could have told the school he has access to guns, they could have paid attention when he told them of hallucinations, and they could have told him something other than "suck it up".

If I was a school counselor and was in a situation like this where both parents and a student are in the office literally talking about guns, I would expect the parents to tell us. The parents went out of their way to ignore his behavior.

I guess opinions will just differ. I can't imagine charging the school for something the parents should have covered a long time ago. I do think the counselor should have asked if there were guns, but I'm not placing blame on the school. The parents had every single opportunity to stop this and they just didn't.

ETA: Sure, if you want to boil it down to that day we could put more onus on the school. I always feel like these situations are viewed in a vacuum. There's way more than that morning, and way more than that counselor to blame.

I think there's plenty of blame to go around. I think there's due diligence the school should have done, but didn't. I think if the school had checked his backpack and locker before sending him away unsupervised, there would not have been a shooting there that day. I think the school had a job to do that day, and they didn't do it. I think it's totally appropriate to blame the school for not doing their job. Just as I think it's appropriate to blame the parents for not doing their job. And just as I think it's appropriate to blame the kid himself for loading up a gun, pointing it at people, and pulling the trigger.

I'm not saying this is all the school's fault. I'm saying that the parts of it that are the school's fault are the school's fault.

 

[Meadmaker]

If someone wants to blame the school, blame the school. I don't personally agree, I think the problem was with the parents.

There can be more than one problem. The fact that they were lousy parents doesn't mean that no one else made mistakes.


The school personnel were professionals, so they are held to a different standard. It's not even a "higher" standard as such. They aren't expected to be as interested, involved, or concerned as the parents should have been, but there are certain things that professionals should do when confronted with a suicidal person, and the professionals didn't do it.

And I'm cutting them some slack in not recognizing that Ethan was actually homicidal instead of just suicidal. In retrospect, it's pretty obvious, but the fact is that in "Think horses, not zebras" terms, suicidal is still the "horse" part of that saying.

 

[plague311]

All great points. I don't necessarily agree, but I don't think there's much more to cover, either. I'm fine with saying the school should have checked the backpack, I don't think they were using lockers much at the time due to the pandemic, but I'm also not that surprised they didn't.

To me, I am looking at where it started. It started with the parents, it ended in the school.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

It still strikes me as very much an uphill battle for the prosecutors. I could easily see a jury fully convinced that these parents are reckless, callous morons still returning a not-guilty verdict. This whole thing strikes me as a pretty belabored attempt to have existing law stretch and bend to make up for the fact that unsafe storage of a firearm is not illegal in the state.

 

[mgidm86]

The school may be partially to blame but the parent behavior, to me, should be considered criminal, not the school. It's just a school.

"Gee, sorry we didn't know your son is a neglected psycho killer!"

The school didn't know he had access to guns, the parents absolutely did.

 

[theprestige]

The school may be partially to blame but the parent behavior, to me, should be considered criminal, not the school. It's just a school.

"Gee, sorry we didn't know your son is a neglected psycho killer!"

The school didn't know he had access to guns, the parents absolutely did.

The school doesn't have to know. They just have to be aware of the possibility, and hedge against it. Instead, the school seems to have taken a very pre-Columbine attitude. Which is bizarre in a post-Columbine world.

 

[mgidm86]

The school doesn't have to know. They just have to be aware of the possibility, and hedge against it. Instead, the school seems to have taken a very pre-Columbine attitude. Which is bizarre in a post-Columbine world.

I agree, I just meant criminally. The school, at least from everything I've read gets a big WTF? from me, minimum. It blows my mind they didn't see this possibility given the evidence I've seen.

 

[newyorkguy]

The parents are headed to prison, 10-15 years.

Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley, were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison. The Crumbleys were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in separate trials earlier this year but were sentenced together. Family members of the four students killed in the 2021 shooting addressed the Crumbleys during the sentencing hearing, with one father telling the couple, "The blood of our children is on your hands." Their cases stand as a test of the limits of who’s responsible for a school shooting — the first time a parent of a school shooter has been held directly responsible for such killings.

The lead prosecutor in James and Jennifer Crumbley's criminal trials said it was "disappointing" that the parents didn't express remorse. CNN news link