In a first for the U.S. justice system, husband and wife James and Jennifer Crumbley are the first parents convicted for their indirect involvement in a mass school shooting. They are now awaiting sentencing after jurors found them guilty of involuntary manslaughter for having an unsecured gun at home and for showing indifference toward their teenage son, Ethan, and his mental health.
Ethan Crumbley’s shooting spree at Oxford High School, in November 2021, took the lives of four students.
The parents had met with concerned school officials on the same day the shooting occurred.
“These convictions are not about poor parenting,” Judge Cheryl Matthews said. "These convictions confirm repeated acts, or lack of acts, that could have halted an oncoming runaway train.”
Mike Hammond, legislative counsel at Gun Owners of America, predicts the convictions are the “beginning of the end” for the legal right to keep firearms in a home for self-protection.
“Anyone who does that in Michigan from here on out,” he tells AFN, “could get long, long prison terms if their kids got a hold of guns and used them to commit a crime."
Reacting to the convictions on Fox News, however, “The Five” co-host Jeanine Pirro said jurors got it right. A former prosecutor who has charged negligent parents, Pirro said the trial of the parents pointed out they repeatedly ignored serious signs their son was a danger to himself and to others. The father, she pointed out, purchased him a firearm even though the teenager told his parents he needed mental help.
“He was a mess. The school knew he was mess,” she said. “The school called the parents. The parents have a responsibility here.”
Admitting there is a “slippery slope” argument, Pirro rejected any warnings about setting a precedent.
“It’s time for parents to recognize: You have an obligation to the rest of society to protect them from someone you know can be a danger to them,” she said.
