Parents of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley should face trial, appeals court rules
The parents of a Michigan teenager who fatally shot four of his classmates in 2021 should face trial, an appeals court ruled Thursday.
James and Jennifer Crumbley, parents to Ethan Crumbley, face four counts of involuntary manslaughter for their inaction prior to their son’s deadly attack at his Detroit-area high school.
The Crumbleys tried to have the charges thrown out, but the Michigan Court of Appeals sided with prosecutors.
The parents were “actively involved in [Ethan’s] mental state remaining untreated…provided him with the weapon used to kill the victims, and…refused to remove him from the situation that led directly to the shootings,” three appeals judges wrote in their decision.
Ethan, then 15, killed four classmates at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021, in the north Detroit suburb of Oxford. He also wounded six other students and a teacher in the attack. In October 2022, he pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including one count of terrorism and four counts of first-degree murder.
Prior to the shooting, Ethan wrote about his mental health problems in a journal, including a disturbing entry that read in part, “I have zero help for my mental problems and it’s causing me to shoot up the f—king school.”
Despite knowing about Ethan’s fragile mental state, the Crumbleys bought Ethan a gun on Nov. 26, 2021, the appeals judges wrote. James signed for the weapon, while Jennifer took him to a shooting range the next day.
On the day of the shooting, the Crumbley parents were called into a meeting with school administrators after Ethan wrote, “The thoughts won’t stop help me,” and drew a picture of a gun on a worksheet, according to prosecutors. Unbeknownst to his parents, Ethan had brought his new gun to school that day. Despite the warning signs, he was not removed from school. Minutes later, he opened fire.
“Our decision is based solely on the record evidence,” the judges wrote, “and the actions and inactions taken by defendants despite the uniquely troubling facts of which they were fully aware.”
