Crumbleys don't want jury to see video of Oxford school shooting

With their trials just two weeks away, the Oxford school shooter's parents are fighting to prevent jurors from seeing the video of the massacre carried out by their son, maintaining the footage is both irrelevant and "overwhelmingly prejudicial" to their cases.

Moreover, the defense maintains, it had no idea the prosecution planned to use the video until last week, when the prosecution disclosed that detail in a filing.

"Clearly, one of the most prejudicial and inflammatory pieces of evidence would be the footage of the shooting," attorney Shannon Smith, who is representing the shooter's mother, wrote in a Monday filing, stating she was "shocked" at learning the prosecution may play the video at trial.

"(I) truly did not fathom that the prosecution would play the shooting footage at trial in this matter," Smith wrote, maintaining the two sides previously had informal conversations about keeping the video out. "While off the record conversations do not speak as orders of the court, informal discussions through the pendency of this case led counsel to repeatedly believe the prosecution did not intend to play the video footage of the shooting."

The prosecution scoffed at the claim, maintaining the defense has long known about the video, which it intends to use against James and Jennifer Crumbley, the first parents in America charged in a mass school shooting. Their son murdered four Oxford High School students and injured seven other people on Nov. 30, 2021, using a gun his parents had bought him as an early Christmas present. Ethan Crumbley has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

"The video goes directly to proving that the four students were killed by (their) son with the gun that the (dad) bought for him four days earlier," Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Marc Keast argues in a Monday filing, noting the video at issue has no sound.

"(We) are unaware of any case where the prosecution is barred from representing a silent video taken from a distance, that shows the shooting itself," writes Keast, who has stressed the case against the parents is a homicide case.

The Crumbleys are charged with involuntary manslaughter for allegedly ignoring a troubled son, and buying him the gun used in the rampage instead of getting him help.

Defense contends it misunderstood which video would be used

While the Crumbleys do not contest their son's actions, the prosecution maintains it gets to decide what evidence it will use against the parents — not the defense.

"(The parents') suggestion that the deaths of the four victims — and the relevant video that helps prove these deaths — are irrelevant and inadmissible is both untrue and offensive," Keast writes, stressing the prosecution has a right to use "the most compelling witnesses and evidence" to prove that four children died and that the Crumbleys caused their deaths.

On Friday, Oakland County Judge Cheryl Matthews ruled that the school shooting video would be admissible at trial, maintaining the defense has known about this video for months.

But the defense maintains there's a misunderstanding about which school surveillance video would be used at trial, so it filed a motion Monday asking the judge to reconsider that decision.

In that filing, the mother's lawyer wrote that she expected prosecutors to use school video footage of the parents entering and leaving Oxford High School on the morning of the shooting, when they were summoned about their son's troubling behavior. The boy had drawn a gun on a math worksheet, along with a bleeding human body and the words, "The thoughts won't stop, help me."

Witnesses to shooting expected to testify

The parents, after seeing the drawing, told school officials they would get their son help in the coming days and asked if he could be returned to class because they had to get back to their jobs. The boy was returned to class. The parents went back to work.

"This video is very clearly relevant to the parents’ cases as it includes footage of the parents and shows their whereabouts and timing," Smith writes.

Two hours after the parents left the school, their son emerged from a bathroom and opened fire.

"At trial, the meeting the Crumbleys had with the shooter and the school counselor will be highly relevant as the prosecution points to several actions and inactions of the parents during that specific meeting," Smith writes.

The prosecution has long argued that the Crumbleys, more than anyone else, could have prevented the shooting had they disclosed to school officials that they had bought their son a gun. But they never shared that information.

To the chagrin of the defense, the prosecution also plans to call as witnesses a teacher who was injured in the shooting and an assistant principal who fought unsuccessfully to save the life of a boy who was shot in the head.

The defense argues the testimony of those witnesses is irrelevant and could unfairly inflame the passions of the jury. A hearing on the witness testimony is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Wednesday before Matthews.

The Crumbleys maintain that whatever happened inside the school building during the shooting is irrelevant to their case and that their charges specifically focus on how they behaved as parents before the shooting.

The Crumbleys are accused of ignoring a troubled son, never getting him therapy and never disclosing to the school that they had bought him a gun when they had the chance.

The Crumbleys, who are facing separate trials, maintain they had no way of knowing their son would carry out a school shooting and that the gun at issue was properly secured in their home.

The parents, if convicted, face up to 15 years in prison.

Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Crumbleys don't want jury to see video of Oxford school shooting