Parents of 15 yo Michigan shooter sentenced to prison terms

[Pam in CT]

(trying to gift the NYT link, but it'll be carried in all outlets): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/us/crumbley-sentencing-oxford-high-shooting.html?ugrp=u&unlocked_article_code=1.jE0.atZc.Ixl8zKxKH5Kb&smid=url-share ) .  Their trials on manslaughter charges were concluded in Feb and March respectively.

Quote

...“Parents are not expected to be psychic,” Judge Cheryl Matthews of the Oakland County Circuit Court in Pontiac, Mich., said before issuing the sentence. “But these convictions are not about poor parenting. These convictions confirm repeated acts or lack of acts that could have halted an oncoming runaway train — repeatedly ignoring things that would make a reasonable person feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up.”...

...In the trials of both parents, prosecutors focused in part on their failure to remove their son from school after he made a violent drawing on the morning of the shooting. It included a written plea for help.

They also emphasized Ethan’s access to a handgun that Mr. Crumbley had purchased. And they said that Ms. Crumbley had missed signs that her son was struggling with his mental health, adding that she took him to a gun range just days before the shooting.

Defense lawyers for both parents said they could not have foreseen the unspeakable violence their son would commit.

Their trials became a lightning rod for issues of parental responsibility at a time of high-profile gun violence by minors. In recent months, parents in other states have pleaded guilty to charges of reckless conduct or neglect after their children injured or killed others with guns.

But the manslaughter charges against the Crumbleys were unique, and legal experts aid their trials could serve as a playbook for other prosecutors who seek to hold parents accountable in the future.

I hope so. Part of being a responsible gun owner is ensuring your minor child doesn't have ETA: unsupervised   access.

Edited April 9 by Pam in CT

[Katy]

13 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

(trying to gift the NYT link, but it'll be carried in all outlets): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/us/crumbley-sentencing-oxford-high-shooting.html?ugrp=u&unlocked_article_code=1.jE0.atZc.Ixl8zKxKH5Kb&smid=url-share ) .  Their trials on manslaughter charges were concluded in Feb and March respectively.

I hope so. Part of being a responsible gun owner is ensuring your minor child doesn't have access.

I have friends with minor children on high school skeet shooting teams. And others who teach high school kids how to hunt. I don’t think the problem was simply a minor having access to a gun. It was that particular minor with his history of all kinds of warning signs. 

But ultimately I wish constitutional gun rights would get overturned. I realize I’m sitting in an extremely privileged position of living in a safe place with a well-staffed police department and rapid response times, and little dangerous wildlife though. Everything is so complicated. 

[Pam in CT]

2 hours ago, Katy said:

I have friends with minor children on high school skeet shooting teams. And others who teach high school kids how to hunt. I don’t think the problem was simply a minor having access to a gun. It was that particular minor with his history of all kinds of warning signs. 

But ultimately I wish constitutional gun rights would get overturned. I realize I’m sitting in an extremely privileged position of living in a safe place with a well-staffed police department and rapid response times, and little dangerous wildlife though. Everything is so complicated. 

I don't, even if it were possible with our current system and polity, which it isn't.

 

What I hope for is that we take the idea of responsible gun ownership seriously. I have no problem with minor high school skeet shooting teams (or minors hunting, or etc) where there is adult supervision, as there is for high school sport teams and clubs in all sorts of other areas with substantially less risk of accident.

Under our legal system, minors **cannot be** legally responsible in the event of accident. Even the "good kids" with no history of mental struggle like the Michigan shooter, even the kids whose parents have spent hours training them on safety precautions. If minors are using weapons in the absence of any supervising adult, there is no one responsible.

 

[Terabith]

I really feel like it's shaky legally to sentence parents to prison for what their minor children do, especially when the minor was tried and sentenced as an adult.  I don't feel like our legal system can have it both ways.  Either children are charged as adults and considered as responsible for their actions (and honestly, I feel strongly that kids should NOT be charged as adults, but it's the system we've got) OR parents are responsible for the actions of their minor children.  I don't think it should be able to be both.  

I definitely think these parents are guilty of incredibly poor judgment, but I also think this is an unjust sentence of them, given what the laws were in Michigan at the time.  NOW it would be reasonable, because a safe storage law has been passed, but at the time, there hadn't been.  And I believe there's a difference between poor parenting and poor judgment and criminal behavior.  

[ScoutTN]

Echoing @Pam in CT. 
 

I don’t want the Second Amendment repealed. I want sensible limitations to this right, for public safety and order.

First Amendment rights are not a blank check, they have limitations. Freedom of speech is limited by libel and slander laws. Freedom of assembly is limited too - by all means have a parade, but you need a permit.
Demonstrations that block traffic or otherwise create chaos are either not permitted or disbanded by LE or result in people arrested.

Semi automatic long guns are for killing people and no ordinary citizen needs one. Without these weapons, shooters would be so much less powerful. Background checks need to be thorough and include mental health. Permits, training, proof of correct storage etc. need to be required. Loopholes closed. I am a small government advocate, but gun laws need to be federal so limitations and enforcement can be uniform. Yes, all limits and enforcement will be problematic and inconsistent and incomplete. But WAY the heck better than where we are.

[MEmama]

In response to the title: GOOD.

For all those who cry But ResPonSiBLe gun ownership, this ain't that. And this is the consequence. 

[regentrude]

35 minutes ago, Terabith said:

I really feel like it's shaky legally to sentence parents to prison for what their minor children do, especially when the minor was tried and sentenced as an adult.  I don't feel like our legal system can have it both ways.  Either children are charged as adults and considered as responsible for their actions (and honestly, I feel strongly that kids should NOT be charged as adults, but it's the system we've got) OR parents are responsible for the actions of their minor children.  I don't think it should be able to be both.  

I definitely think these parents are guilty of incredibly poor judgment, but I also think this is an unjust sentence of them, given what the laws were in Michigan at the time.  NOW it would be reasonable, because a safe storage law has been passed, but at the time, there hadn't been.  And I believe there's a difference between poor parenting and poor judgment and criminal behavior.  

When a bank robber shoots a person, the getaway driver is held liable as well. Both are adults.

The parents provided the shooter with the weapon. 

Eta: the lack of remorse is stunning. The mother said "I’ve asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have." Seriously???

Edited April 9 by regentrude

[Terabith]

1 hour ago, regentrude said:

When a bank robber shoots a person, the getaway driver is held liable as well. Both are adults.

The parents provided the shooter with the weapon. 

Eta: the lack of remorse is stunning. The mother said "I’ve asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have." Seriously???

I actually disagree with getaway drivers being held responsible too.  
 

I don’t like them.  I don’t think the parents are good people.  But I think convicting parents for the actions of their kids when there was no law at the time for safe storage is a cop out and holding parents responsible is a way for us to feel virtuous and like justice is being served but not actually having to do anything to promote responsible gun ownership.  I think it’s a dangerous precedent and a way to avoid the hard work of governing and changing laws to protect society.  

[fraidycat]

2 hours ago, Terabith said:

I really feel like it's shaky legally to sentence parents to prison for what their minor children do, especially when the minor was tried and sentenced as an adult.  I don't feel like our legal system can have it both ways.  Either children are charged as adults and considered as responsible for their actions (and honestly, I feel strongly that kids should NOT be charged as adults, but it's the system we've got) OR parents are responsible for the actions of their minor children.  I don't think it should be able to be both.  

I definitely think these parents are guilty of incredibly poor judgment, but I also think this is an unjust sentence of them, given what the laws were in Michigan at the time.  NOW it would be reasonable, because a safe storage law has been passed, but at the time, there hadn't been.  And I believe there's a difference between poor parenting and poor judgment and criminal behavior.  

People get charged and held criminally liable for "poor judgement" quite often.

Many accidental deaths are a result of "poor judgement" from driving tired, falling asleep with the stove on, forgetting babies in cars, etc.

Poor judgement is not a "get out of jail free" card. Nor should it be.

[fraidycat]

2 hours ago, ScoutTN said:

Echoing @Pam in CT. 
 

I don’t want the Second Amendment repealed. I want sensible limitations to this right, for public safety and order.

First Amendment rights are not a blank check, they have limitations. Freedom of speech is limited by libel and slander laws. Freedom of assembly is limited too - by all means have a parade, but you need a permit.
Demonstrations that block traffic or otherwise create chaos are either not permitted or disbanded by LE or result in people arrested.

Semi automatic long guns are for killing people and no ordinary citizen needs one. Without these weapons, shooters would be so much less powerful. Background checks need to be thorough and include mental health. Permits, training, proof of correct storage etc. need to be required. Loopholes closed. I am a small government advocate, but gun laws need to be federal so limitations and enforcement can be uniform. Yes, all limits and enforcement will be problematic and inconsistent and incomplete. But WAY the heck better than where we are.

It'd be great if they actually followed the 2nd amendment. I'm no constitutional expert, but I believe there is some wording about "well regulated militia".

I'm also 100% down with them owning the same firearms that were available at the time of the writing of the amendment. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 

[ScoutTN]

Right, we have the well regulated militia; it’s the National Guard and is generally mobilized by Governors for natural disaster relief, though they do serve in armed conflict on behalf of the US too. No grassroots, minute-men anymore. 

Edited April 10 by ScoutTN

[SKL]

I generally assume the jury has heard information that I don't know, and they usually don't lock people up without a pretty good reason.

I'm not following the details at all, but without the full context, I don't like the judge's comment about the mom taking the kid to the shooting range.  There's nothing wrong with doing that.  Organized, supervised shooting practice with our kids doesn't create murderers.  It's generally something I'd consider good parenting.  However, maybe there is additional context making it clearly wrong in this particular instance.

I 100% agree that parents need to keep guns out of the hands of unsupervised minors, and also, of anyone they know to be unsafe with a gun, to the extent they are able to control that.  I think it's appropriate to charge adults with a crime if they have been negligent about limiting access to their guns.  Whether the crime should be "murder" depends on how much information they had about the shooter's state of mind.

I'm less sure about criminalizing a parent's inability to know exactly when our kids are about to cross the line into criminal behavior.  Kids (and adults) say all sorts of things that could be interpreted in different ways.  When I was a kid, we used to have songs and chants about shooting teachers and burning the school down.  (Don't tell my kids this.)  Nobody took any of it seriously.  People say "I'm gonna kill you / they should just die."  It's not nice, but it doesn't mean parents need to call the cops or put their kids in the mental hospital instead of school.  Mental health will just get worse if we isolate people every time they have an off-color thought.

[DeainUSA]

I am curious if anyone watched either of the the trials in it's entirety and disagrees with the verdict. I can recognize without all the facts and details, some above comments. I was thrilled with the juries verdicts and satisfied with the sentencing. I think it says something when 2 different trials and juries came to the same conclusion.

[Katy]

6 minutes ago, DeainUSA said:

I am curious if anyone watched either of the the trials in it's entirety and disagrees with the verdict. I can recognize without all the facts and details, some above comments. I was thrilled with the juries verdicts and satisfied with the sentencing. I think it says something when 2 different trials and juries came to the same conclusion.

I didn’t follow it closely. DH did and filled me in. 

[Pam in CT]

FWIW, the parents were charged and convicted of involuntary manslaughter, not murder. 

I believe -- IANAL -- that the charge is used for conduct without explicit intention of harm --  like texting or drinking while driving, or depriving workers of water breaks when they're working under extreme heat, or accidentally discharging a gun -- that results in death.

 

@Terabith  I do understand your discomfort about these particular individuals being charged when Michigan law didn't have safe storage legislation at the time.  They weren't literally charged for not-storing the weapon at the single moment the minor took it, but for a broader pattern of conduct over a longer period of time, that the two juries found to be negligent. But I do see what you're saying.

I'm glad that in the wake of this godawful tragedy, Michigan managed to pass both a safe storage law when it is reasonably known that a minor is likely to be on the premises; and also another that outlines consequences to less-than-responsible gun owners whose un-stored weapon is used by minors.

Quote

...If an individual fails to store a firearm as required and a minor obtains the firearm and any of the following occur, they are guilty of a crime under Public Act 16 of 2023, as follows:

• If the minor possesses or exhibits the firearm in a public place or possesses or exhibits the firearm in the presence of another person in a careless, reckless or threatening manner: a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for up to 93 days or a fine of up to $500, or both.
• If the minor discharges the firearm and injures themselves or another individual: a felony punishable by imprisonment for up to five years or a fine of up to $5,000, or both.
• If the minor discharges the firearm and inflicts serious impairment of a body function on themselves or another individual: a felony punishable by imprisonment for up to 10 years or a fine of up to $7,500, or both.
• If the minor discharges the firearm and inflicts death on themselves or another individual: a felony punishable by imprisonment for up to 15 years or a fine of up to $10,000, or both.

I agree with @ScoutTN  that making real inroads on reducing gun violence and suicide ultimately entails federal action. But we have to start somewhere, and atm the state level is where progress is being made, too slowly but better is better.

[City Mouse]

I haven’t read the details of what these parents’ convictions, but I do think more parents/ gun owners should be held accountable when minors use those unsecured or improperly secured fire arms and someone is injured as a result. 
 

 

[KSera]

2 hours ago, SKL said:

People say "I'm gonna kill you / they should just die."  It's not nice, but it doesn't mean parents need to call the cops or put their kids in the mental hospital instead of school. 

This kid’s talk went beyond this. He asked his dad to take him to a psychiatrist and was told to suck it up. He told his mom he was having hallucinations and felt like there were demons in the house and objects moving around, and she did nothing. Despite this, they bought him a gun, and then after going to the school that morning and being shown the violent picture he drew with a gun and people bleeding  and a “help me” message, knowing that he had a new gun, they still sent him back to class so they could get back to work. That absolutely meets the standard of gross negligence that contributed to deaths of students to me. 

[Faith-manor]

Once you can get the court transcripts online, read them. The stunning level of inaction from these parents goes beyond just what was released as sound bites on the news. Their cell phones were dumped along with their son and the guy she was having an affair with. If you read all of it, you will come to the same conclusion as the jury. They didn't just neglect their kid. They didn't just fail to take him seriously. They literally admitted he was effed up and likely to kill someone and laughed it up. They bought him the gun knowing full well what he was probably going to do with it. The stuff they admitted to knowing and doing nothing about was beyond the pale.

This was the case of a teen saying and being serious that he was going to kill someone if they did not get him help, a school that begged them to get him help (but should be charged with negligence and manslaughter for allowing him to go back to class instead of calling 911 and having medics with the permission of police to force him to be transported to the ER for altered mental status which was so effing apparent it staggered the imagination), and evil people who didn't give an eff if anyone died so long as they were not inconvienced, and then went on the lam because they KNEW they were guilty as sin.

Children died, adults died, an entire community was shattered, and a generation of students have PTSD. They were 100% complicit, practically co conspirators in it. And all that mother wanted to do that morning was get back to her sex man/affair boy. Apparently it didn't occur to her that those text conversations would end up coming out nor that he would turn state's evidence on her and her husband. 

To quote Spiderman Uncle, "With great power, comes great responsibility." Don't want to accept the consequences for owning a gun and letting it fall into the hands of minors and mentally ill people? Don't freaking buy one! 

[Harriet Vane]

11 hours ago, City Mouse said:

I haven’t read the details of what these parents’ convictions, but I do think more parents/ gun owners should be held accountable when minors use those unsecured or improperly secured fire arms and someone is injured as a result. 
 

 

We do so for pools, so why not for guns? 

[Happy2BaMom]

17 hours ago, ScoutTN said:

....

I don’t want the Second Amendment repealed. I want sensible limitations to this right, for public safety and order.

First Amendment rights are not a blank check, they have limitations. Freedom of speech is limited by libel and slander laws. Freedom of assembly is limited too - by all means have a parade, but you need a permit.
Demonstrations that block traffic or otherwise create chaos are either not permitted or disbanded by LE or result in people arrested.

Semi automatic long guns are for killing people and no ordinary citizen needs one. Without these weapons, shooters would be so much less powerful. Background checks need to be thorough and include mental health. Permits, training, proof of correct storage etc. need to be required. Loopholes closed. I am a small government advocate, but gun laws need to be federal so limitations and enforcement can be uniform. Yes, all limits and enforcement will be problematic and inconsistent and incomplete. But WAY the heck better than where we are.

I completely agree with you, but, unfortunately, many states in the US have gone or are going in the completely opposite direction.

[gardenmom5]

I have no sympathy for the parents.  They knew he had mental health issues, but they provided him unsupervised access to a gun.

I hope the parents of Chase Jones are also held accountable for continuing to give him cars, despite having totaled two previous cars in less than a year and knowing about his love of seeing how fast he could drive (this was beyond speeding.)   I don't care if he was 19, his parents gave him cars, and they gave him the one he used to drive 112 mph on a 40mph street in the middle of the day killing four people (three children), and seriously injuring two more children from three families.

[Corraleno]

I think the convictions and sentences were fully warranted. IMO the fact that there wasn't a "safe gun law" on the books at the time is irrelevant; they were charged with involuntary manslaughter by gross negligence, and their negligence went so far beyond just leaving a gun unlocked.

These parents purposely bought a gun as a Christmas present for a child they knew was mentally ill, while simultaneously refusing his requests for psychiatric help. He repeatedly told his mother that he was hearing voices and seeing demons, and begged them to take him to the doctor, but he told a friend that his mother just laughed at him and his father told him to suck it up. He texted a friend that he wanted to call 911 on himself, but was afraid his parents would be "so pissed" if he did. During the same period he was begging for help, he was making videos of himself torturing and killing baby birds, he was watching hundreds of violent videos, including mass shootings, he was recording his violent thoughts in a journal, and posting gruesome pictures on social media. Months before they bought him his own gun, he texted a friend photos of himself playing with his father's loaded gun and "joking" about shooting up a school. His parents knew he was struggling with mental health, they even knew about the journal, but they never bothered to check his phone or browser history, or look in his room where they would have found a severed bird head in a jar. They were so preoccupied with their own lives that instead of getting him into therapy, they bought him a gun and taught him to shoot it. 

The day before the shooting they were told he'd been searching online for ammo while in class and Jennifer texted Ethan "LOL next time just don't get caught." On the day of the shooting they were shown Ethan's drawing — a gun and a murder victim with the words "blood everywhere" and "the thoughts won't stop, help me" — and they refused to take him home, even though Jennifer's boss testified she could easily have taken the day off and James was just a DoorDash driver. They also purposely withheld from the school the fact that he owned a gun just like the one in the drawing, and that they knew he was having intrusive thoughts and hearing voices. Ethan's backpack was in the room with them, and his parents didn't even bother opening it to see if the gun they bought for him might be in there. What happened that day was absolutely predictable and 100% preventable, but at every single point where the parents could have taken action to prevent it, they made grossly negligent choices that made the tragic outcome more likely rather than less.

Other actions that the judge considered as part of the sentencing included the parents attempts to flee, their refusal to take responsibility (Jennifer said she wouldn't have done anything differently and James repeatedly referred to himself as a martyr and victim of persecution), and the fact that James made so many death threats against the prosecutor that his phone privileges were revoked.

[maize]

I haven't followed the case closely, and I don't know if manslaughter is the most appropriate conviction.

I do think it is reasonable to hold parents accountable for actions that directly or indirectly contribute to their child's murderous actions (such as buying the gun and failing to ensure it was not easily accessible to a minor with active mental health struggles). 

Do not quote:

I live this experience. I share a home with someone who has, in the midst of a mental health crisis, talked about shooting people. I will absolutely not permit firearms to be stored anywhere on my property. If needed, I will use every tool available to prevent tragedy and get a person with a malfunctioning brain help. 

I estimate the odds that at least one person would be dead had firearms been accessible in our home over the years at about 50%; the most likely victim of course being the person directly afflicted by mental illness. When one person's brain has devolved into irrationality,  it is the responsibility of people around who have healthy, functioning brains to act to mitigate the consequences and risks of the malfunctioning brain. This is doubly true for parents and others with direct responsibility for minors. 

Edited April 10 by maize

[Pam in CT]

(( maize ))

I am, again, astounded at your strength and compassion.

[Terabith]

Okay, so if the kid is as sick as it sounds, why the heck was he considered competent to stand trial and was sentenced to prison?  A floridly psychotic teenager should not be charged as an adult. 

[Faith-manor]

2 hours ago, gardenmom5 said:

I have no sympathy for the parents.  They knew he had mental health issues, but they provided him unsupervised access to a gun.

I hope the parents of Chase Jones are also held accountable for continuing to give him cars, despite having totaled two previous cars in less than a year and knowing about his love of seeing how fast he could drive (this was beyond speeding.)   I don't care if he was 19, his parents gave him cars, and they gave him the one he used to drive 112 mph on a 40mph street in the middle of the day killing four people (three children), and seriously injuring two more children from three families.

Agreed. Once someone demonstrates that they will use a car as a weapon, then continuing to provide them has to be some sort of accomplice to the crime. This is like giving a drunk driver, whom you know is drunk, a car to drive. There has to be responsibility for doing something so egregious to assist someone in killing or maiming someone else. This wasn't accidental by any stretch, and they knew for certain that he deliberately engages in reckless driving for sport. 

[KSera]

@maize Your story (and others) are examples of why I find it stunning that red flag laws are actively fought and that there are gun owners who don’t think there should be a way to keep guns out of the hands of people who are mental ill. Last I checked, there were only two states that even had laws that allowed a mentally ill person to make the decision themself to revoke their own right to purchase a firearm.   Why is that law not a no brainer everywhere?

[Faith-manor]

1 minute ago, Terabith said:

Okay, so if the kid is as sick as it sounds, why the heck was he considered competent to stand trial and was sentenced to prison?  A floridly psychotic teenager should not be charged as an adult. 

Michigan does not have the not guilty by reason of insanity plea anymore. Medical issues can be taken into account by judges as a possibility for mercy and leniency if the person plead guilty but mentally ill. However, it is entirely up to the judge and leniency is only given if beyond a shadow of a doubt the person did not know what they did was wrong. Ethan indicated when the forensic psychiatrist interviewed him that he for sure knew when he did it that it was wrong/illegal/immoral to do it.

My father, who was in the midst of oxygen levels so low it is mind boggling that he was conscious, and experiencing paraneoplastics syndrome (in the brain) was still found guilty but mentally ill when he attempted to kill my mother and commit suicide, actions which left her very injured but him not so much. His lawyer was able to plead it down to assault, and the judge sentenced him to 5 months suspended because by the time he was sentenced, he was on hospice and barely physically able to even be taken to court for sentencing.

[Corraleno]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

Okay, so if the kid is as sick as it sounds, why the heck was he considered competent to stand trial and was sentenced to prison?  A floridly psychotic teenager should not be charged as an adult. 

He was found competent because he admitted to carefully planning the killings in advance with the full understanding that what he was doing was wrong and that he would go to prison for it. He admitted that the reason he asked his parents to buy him a gun was specifically so he could shoot up the school, saying he wanted to be known as the biggest school shooter in Michigan history. He wrote in his journal the day before the shooting that "the first victim has to be a pretty girl" along with a drawing showing him shooting a girl in the head.

It's possible to be mentally ill and still understand that what you are doing is wrong — the defense's own psychological evaluation deemed him competent, which is why they withdrew their initial insanity plea.

The defense did argue for a shorter sentence with the possibility of parole, on the grounds that Ethan was young and could be rehabilitated, but prosecutors pointed out that he remained obsessed with violence while in jail, and had managed to bypass protections on a tablet in order to access violent content, including visiting a specific website more than 30 times to watch videos of murder and torture. He was supposed to be using the tablet to study for his GED.

Edited April 10 by Corraleno

[Faith-manor]

15 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

He was found competent because he admitted to carefully planning the killings in advance with the full understanding that what he was doing was wrong. He admitted that the reason he asked his parents to buy him a gun was specifically so he could shoot up the school, saying he wanted to be known as the biggest school shooter in Michigan history. He wrote in his journal the day before the shooting that "the first victim will be a pretty girl."  It's possible to be mentally ill and still understand that what you are doing is wrong — the defense's own psychological evaluation deemed him competent, which is why they withdrew their initial insanity plea.

The defense did argue for a shorter sentence with the possibility of parole, on the grounds that Ethan was young and could be rehabilitated, but prosecutors pointed out that he remained obsessed with violence while in jail, and had managed to bypass protections on a tablet in order to access violent content including torture videos.

Yes. All of this. It should also not be over looked that the father made threats from jail. It was mentioned on CNN March 8 of this year. This family simply must remain behind bars for the sake of us all. I am actually discouraged that 10-15 is all they received. With good behavior they could be out in less than 10 years, and I would not put it past either of them to take revenge on the community, the prosecutor and judge and their families (assuming they can find their addresses), and pretty much anyone they feel had a hand in their incarceration. I would have been just fine with locking them up and throwing away the keys. We live 40 minutes away from this community, and have acquaintances whose relatives/friends died in that mass shooting. They are terrified of the parents.

[gardenmom5]

1 hour ago, KSera said:

@maize Your story (and others) are examples of why I find it stunning that red flag laws are actively fought and that there are gun owners who don’t think there should be a way to keep guns out of the hands of people who are mental ill. Last I checked, there were only two states that even had laws that allowed a mentally ill person to make the decision themself to revoke their own right to purchase a firearm.   Why is that law not a no brainer everywhere?

It's more complex.  The colorado movie theater shooter scared his psychiatrist so much, she tried to report him.  The state wouldn't hold him.  Despite the recognized danger, he walked free. 

There was a (big) mentally ill homeless man in Seattle with a record of violent assaults in the previous five months, yet he walked free.  Fortunately for one would be victim,  another man was able to prevent him throwing the woman off a freeway overpass into rush hour traffic.  The politicians and homeless advocates raged at the judge for refusing to grant bail.

Those are things that must be changed. 

[Terabith]

44 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Yes. All of this. It should also not be over looked that the father made threats from jail. It was mentioned on CNN March 8 of this year. This family simply must remain behind bars for the sake of us all. I am actually discouraged that 10-15 is all they received. With good behavior they could be out in less than 10 years, and I would not put it past either of them to take revenge on the community, the prosecutor and judge and their families (assuming they can find their addresses), and pretty much anyone they feel had a hand in their incarceration. I would have been just fine with locking them up and throwing away the keys. We live 40 minutes away from this community, and have acquaintances whose relatives/friends died in that mass shooting. They are terrified of the parents.

Wow.  That is appalling.  I didn't realize all of those things.  

[KSera]

1 minute ago, gardenmom5 said:

It's more complex.  The colorado movie theater shooter scared his psychiatrist so much, she tried to report him.  The state wouldn't hold him.  Despite the recognized danger, he walked free. 

I'm unclear the connection. The standard for involuntary commitment is different than the standard for revoking someone's right to purchase and own firearms. Your state is actually one of the ones I mentioned that allows people to revoke their own ability to purchase a firearm if they feel they are a danger to themself or others. That one is not a complex law at all.

[gardenmom5]

11 minutes ago, KSera said:

I'm unclear the connection. The standard for involuntary commitment is different than the standard for revoking someone's right to purchase and own firearms. Your state is actually one of the ones I mentioned that allows people to revoke their own ability to purchase a firearm if they feel they are a danger to themself or others. That one is not a complex law at all.

My point being, society's attitude towards mental illness.  The family would have shown unbalanced thinking, he certainly did (he thought shooting up a school was a great idea,  an ego boost - even though he knew he would go to jail.)  He didn't just get up one day and go do this, he made plans about how he'd do it.   Same for the aurora theater shooter. He made plans. 

it is much harder to do a hold than it was 45 years ago, but some people should be. 

[Faith-manor]

Also, everyone, I did not divulge the info about my father for sympathy, just as a way to illustrate the plea option in Michigan. My father figure, for what it is worth, was absolutely out of his mind when he did it. BUT, the extenuating circumstances, many of which he was SOLELY responsible for, prior to the act was 100% preventable. He spent a year allowing himself to get into that state physically, refusing medical care because he didn't want to pay his Medicare deductible even though Mark and I gave him $5000 and begged him to get help. He was totally in his right mind when he made that usual for himself bull headed decision. And from there it was a long litany of egregious choices that landed him in the position to NOT be in control. Even his own therapists recognized it. There is a lot of history I won't relate. But, he was not remotely innocent by any stretch, and my brother and I were just fine with the judge locking him up and letting him die in prison if that is what the judge decided. As it was, we just got a whole lot more verbal abuse heaped on us when he was sent home to serve his probation on hospice and die. I can't even describe it. Suffice it to say, the man I once loved so much as a child is not a person I miss now. 

I don't want anyone to think that I am in a bad place over what he did or that there should be sympathy for him being unable to invoke an insanity plea. There are definitely people who are locked up who should be in psych hospitals or in out patient care, and the mercy of the court often does not acknowledge this. My father was not one of these people. He could have stopped the train loooooooooong before it came into the station so to speak.

He is gone, and my mother is living her best life without him.

What I will say is that unless something changes, though these people will be ineligible to own a fire arm legally, the reality is that they will likely have them, possibly even the ones they owned at the time of the crime. It is voluntary surrender here. No police come asking much less looking. They don't have the resources to toss felons houses. No one came for my father's firearms. No one. My brother and husband tossed the house, and confiscated what they could which is actually a felony for them because they don't have the legal right to take his guns. No joke. They did it anyway. Then when he had been dead about six months, my husband was doing some repair work for my mom, and found a loaded one hidden in a hole in the floor of the closet that we had no idea was there until mom nearly put her foot through it.

 

[Corraleno]

1 hour ago, Faith-manor said:

Yes. All of this. It should also not be over looked that the father made threats from jail. It was mentioned on CNN March 8 of this year. This family simply must remain behind bars for the sake of us all. I am actually discouraged that 10-15 is all they received. With good behavior they could be out in less than 10 years, and I would not put it past either of them to take revenge on the community, the prosecutor and judge and their families (assuming they can find their addresses), and pretty much anyone they feel had a hand in their incarceration.

I don't know about Jennifer, but James is one very angry, very scary dude. In his presentencing statement he continued to insist that he was unjustly charged and convicted and that there were absolutely no signs that Ethan was disturbed — he literally said that Ethan always appeared "very stable" and had never expressed any concerns about mental health, therefore he could not possibly have known of the danger. He insisted that the SIG Sauer 9mm was his gun, not Ethan's, despite Jennifer's post referring to it as Ethan's Christmas present and Ethan's own testimony, backed up texts and journal entries, that the gun was bought for him, at his request, and that he had specifically chosen that model. James insisted that the gun was legally secured and he had no idea his son was able to access it, despite the fact that police found the cable lock that was sold with the gun inside the case still in an unopened plastic bag; his other guns were in a small gun safe on an easily accessible shelf with the combination still set to the default code of 000, and even before they bought the SIG Sauer Ethan had posted photos of himself playing with one of the other guns, fully loaded, while joking about shooting up a school.

He made really vile threats against the prosecutor, calling her a "f***** stupid bitch," promising "there will be retribution, believe me," and saying he was "going to f***** take her down," she's "f***ed as soon as I get out,"  she'll be "f***** sucking hot rocks in hell soon," and "I am on a rampage... your ass is going down and you better be f***** scared." After his phone privileges were revoked, he gave the prosecutor the middle finger in court (his attorney argued that he was just "adjusting his headphones" and that the death threats were just "venting").

I sure hope they give the prosecutor a heads up before he is released, and that she has a restraining order and some serious protection when he gets out!

[Faith-manor]

13 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

I don't know about Jennifer, but James is one very angry, very scary dude. In his presentencing statement he continued to insist that he was unjustly charged and convicted and that there were absolutely no signs that Ethan was disturbed — he literally said that Ethan always appeared "very stable" and had never expressed any concerns about mental health, therefore he could not possibly have known of the danger. He insisted that the SIG Sauer 9mm was his gun, not Ethan's, despite Jennifer's post referring to it as Ethan's Christmas present and Ethan's own testimony, backed up texts and journal entries, that the gun was bought for him, at his request, and that he had specifically chosen that model. James insisted that the gun was legally secured and he had no idea his son was able to access it, despite the fact that police found the cable lock that was sold with the gun inside the case still in an unopened plastic bag; his other guns were in a small gun safe on an easily accessible shelf with the combination still set to the default code of 000, and even before they bought the SIG Sauer Ethan had posted photos of himself playing with one of the other guns, fully loaded, while joking about shooting up a school.

He made really vile threats against the prosecutor, calling her a "f***** stupid bitch," promising "there will be retribution, believe me," and saying he was "going to f***** take her down," she's "f***ed as soon as I get out,"  she'll be "f***** sucking hot rocks in hell soon," and "I am on a rampage... your ass is going down and you better be f***** scared." After his phone privileges were revoked, he gave the prosecutor the middle finger in court (his attorney argued that he was just "adjusting his headphones" and that the death threats were just "venting").

I sure hope they give the prosecutor a heads up before he is released, and that she has a restraining order and some serious protection when he gets out!

She will need a couple of body guards, and I guarandamntee you they won't be provided. 

If I were her, I would move to Hawaii or Alaska or Samoa or something before he gets out. There won't be anything stopping him, and with 10 years to sit and foment his hate and rage, he will be a very mobile, lethal weapon even if he cannot buy a gun legally.

[Katy]

3 hours ago, Terabith said:

Okay, so if the kid is as sick as it sounds, why the heck was he considered competent to stand trial and was sentenced to prison?  A floridly psychotic teenager should not be charged as an adult. 

Even if the state had an insanity plea, his own writings and drawings would have shown he knew it was wrong, which would stop the ability to use that plea. 

The fact is, all across the country, something approaching 30% of inmates would likely be better served by being in a mental hospital than they would in prison. I may have that statistic slightly off, but it’s in the area. We got rid of federal funding for such places in the 1980’s due to horrific and pervasive abuse. And instead of reform, we replaced them with for-profit prisons in most states. We only put criminals in prison. The rest of that population is often drug addicted, homeless, reliant on family, or some combination. It’s controversial because mental health care (and all health care) funding is political. As are ideas about who gets to decide what kind of freedom or help the non-criminally mentally ill have a right to. 

[dirty ethel rackham]

< Please don't quote this.  >

@maize , I have some similar concerns for a mentally ill adult in our lives.  While I feel the threat level is currently low, I live in fear that I will not have done enough or that I didn't effectively assess possible danger.  We do our best to help keep this person stable - access to good mental health care, stable living environment, basic needs met, etc.  But, in many ways, our hands are tied.  Due to HIPAA laws, there is a limit to what information we have access to.  Due to self-determination rights, we cannot force this person to get help, nor can we get them held without clear evidence of threat of immediate harm to themselves or others.  And any forcing anything will be seen as betrayal - we are much more effective if we can maintain a somewhat positive relationship with this person.  It is a difficult tightrope.  

I have to say that when I heard this verdict, a chill ran down my spine and I pictured myself being led away in an orange jumpsuit.  After more details came out about these parents and their absolute disregard for the very real evidence of danger, I relaxed a little.  But in the court of public opinion, mothers are always judged harshly, no matter how hard they tried.  I fear my tombstone will read "it was never enough."  

[KSera]

3 hours ago, Corraleno said:

I don't know about Jennifer, but James is one very angry, very scary dude. In his presentencing statement he continued to insist that he was unjustly charged and convicted and that there were absolutely no signs that Ethan was disturbed — he literally said that Ethan always appeared "very stable" and had never expressed any concerns about mental health, therefore he could not possibly have known of the danger. He insisted that the SIG Sauer 9mm was his gun, not Ethan's, despite Jennifer's post referring to it as Ethan's Christmas present and Ethan's own testimony, backed up texts and journal entries, that the gun was bought for him, at his request, and that he had specifically chosen that model. James insisted that the gun was legally secured and he had no idea his son was able to access it, despite the fact that police found the cable lock that was sold with the gun inside the case still in an unopened plastic bag; his other guns were in a small gun safe on an easily accessible shelf with the combination still set to the default code of 000, and even before they bought the SIG Sauer Ethan had posted photos of himself playing with one of the other guns, fully loaded, while joking about shooting up a school.

He made really vile threats against the prosecutor, calling her a "f***** stupid bitch," promising "there will be retribution, believe me," and saying he was "going to f***** take her down," she's "f***ed as soon as I get out,"  she'll be "f***** sucking hot rocks in hell soon," and "I am on a rampage... your ass is going down and you better be f***** scared." After his phone privileges were revoked, he gave the prosecutor the middle finger in court (his attorney argued that he was just "adjusting his headphones" and that the death threats were just "venting").

I sure hope they give the prosecutor a heads up before he is released, and that she has a restraining order and some serious protection when he gets out!

Is there a reason none of these things increased his sentence or added additional charges? It seems like threatening the prosecutor in these ways would be a crime in itself. 

[Corraleno]

39 minutes ago, KSera said:

Is there a reason none of these things increased his sentence or added additional charges? It seems like threatening the prosecutor in these ways would be a crime in itself. 

The judge gave them both the maximum sentence possible on the manslaughter charges (15 years), and they will have to serve at least 10 before they're eligible for parole. I hope the parole board does take the death threats into consideration and keeps him there for the full 15.

[Corraleno]

As an interesting side note, on the same day that the Crumbleys were sentenced, Ebony Parker, the assistant principal at the school where a 6 yr old shot his 1st grade teacher, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of felony child abuse, claiming that she "did commit a willful act or omission in the care of such students, in a manner so gross, wanton and culpable as to show a reckless disregard for human life." 

The 6 yr old had a long history of violent behavior, and had been kicked out of kindergarten after choking his teacher and another student, but he was placed in a regular 1st grade class, with little additional support other than allowing one of his parents to sit in class to help control him (which teachers claim was a security risk in itself given the father's criminal history and the mother's extensive drug use). His teacher, Abby Zwerner, along with other teachers and aides, repeatedly complained to Parker about his dangerous behavior; a few days before the shooting he had smashed Zwerner's cell phone.

On the day of the shooting, four different staff members informed Parker that the boy was in a violent mood, had threatened to beat up another child, and claimed he had a gun, which two other students said they had seen, but she ignored them. Zwerner had seen him take something out of his backpack and put it in his pocket, so Parker was asked for permission to search him, which she refused — 20 minutes later he shot Zwerner in the hand and chest, and the only thing that kept him from continuing to shoot was that the gun jammed.

Parker and another staff member were in the main office, along with a student and a grandmother who was there to pickup a different child, when someone burst in to say there'd been a shooting. Parker and the other staff member immediately went into their private offices and shut the doors — leaving the grandmother and the student in the outer office. Zwerner managed to get her students out of the classroom and ran to the office where she collapsed on the floor. The other staff member opened her door, saw the bleeding unconscious teacher, and shut the door again, leaving the grandmother to render aid while the terrified child tried to hide behind a photocopier!

Meanwhile, the police who had been called stood outside banging on the door so long that they contemplated shooting their way in, because the front door was locked and the button to buzz people in was broken; luckily a janitor eventually saw them and opened the door. And when investigators tried to get the school's files on the boy, they had mysteriously disappeared from both the main office and Zwerner's classroom, even though the files on all other students were in place.

Parker faces up to 5 years on each count if convicted. The boy's mother has already been sentenced — she pleaded guilty to one count of child neglect in return for prosecutors dropping additional charges and they requested a 6 month sentence, but the judge sentenced her to 2 years anyway, which is the maximum for the child neglect charge.

It seems like a lot of people, and at least some judges, are truly fed up with the lack of accountability.

[PaxEtLux]

11 hours ago, Corraleno said:

It seems like a lot of people, and at least some judges, are truly fed up with the lack of accountability.

In this school case, I would love to know how much direction(?) or procedures the assistant principal was given from above.  Yes, he made mistakes, but how much of that was because the district had no other place for the child, or was worried about statistics, or was pressuring school administrators to fully mainstream and socially promote all students, no matter what.

[Corraleno]

26 minutes ago, PaxEtLux said:

In this school case, I would love to know how much direction(?) or procedures the assistant principal was given from above.  Yes, he made mistakes, but how much of that was because the district had no other place for the child, or was worried about statistics, or was pressuring school administrators to fully mainstream and socially promote all students, no matter what.

I'm sure there were systemic problems as well, but according to multiple staff members, Parker had a long history of ignoring serious behavioral problems in students and refusing to listen to teachers' concerns. Even if she had no choice but to allow the boy to attend the school, she willfully ignored multiple staff members telling her that day that they believed the child had a gun and had shown it to other students, and she refused the request to search him, dismissing the teachers' concerns with a condescending comment about his pockets being too small for a gun, as if they were idiots for thinking he might have one.

She was incredibly lucky that the gun jammed and her negligence "only" resulted in a seriously injured teacher and a class of extremely traumatized 6 yr olds, because if it hadn't jammed the teacher would be dead and multiple children would likely have been wounded or killed as well, and she could be facing involuntary manslaughter charges like the Crumbleys.

 

[Heartstrings]

12 hours ago, Corraleno said:

Parker and another staff member were in the main office, along with a student and a grandmother who was there to pickup a different child, when someone burst in to say there'd been a shooting. Parker and the other staff member immediately went into their private offices and shut the doors — leaving the grandmother and the student in the outer office. Zwerner managed to get her students out of the classroom and ran to the office where she collapsed on the floor. The other staff member opened her door, saw the bleeding unconscious teacher, and shut the door again, leaving the grandmother to render aid while the terrified child tried to hide behind a photocopier!

Meanwhile, the police who had been called stood outside banging on the door so long that they contemplated shooting their way in, because the front door was locked and the button to buzz people in was broken; luckily a janitor eventually saw them and opened the door. And when investigators tried to get the school's files on the boy, they had mysteriously disappeared from both the main office and Zwerner's classroom, even though the files on all other students were in place.

I hadn’t known any of this.    That makes it all so much worse.   

[Heartstrings]

1 hour ago, PaxEtLux said:

In this school case, I would love to know how much direction(?) or procedures the assistant principal was given from above.  Yes, he made mistakes, but how much of that was because the district had no other place for the child, or was worried about statistics, or was pressuring school administrators to fully mainstream and socially promote all students, no matter what.

None of that excuses not searching the child and his belongings that day, despite repeated requests to do so and other kids saying they had seen a gun.  There is a systematic problem as well, but this was an acute failure.  

[Pam in CT]

re systemic ways in which "accountability" is hindered

1 hour ago, PaxEtLux said:

In this school case, I would love to know how much direction(?) or procedures the assistant principal was given from above.  Yes, he made mistakes, but how much of that was because the district had no other place for the child, or was worried about statistics, or was pressuring school administrators to fully mainstream and socially promote all students, no matter what.

These are are real issues. Systemic faultlines like the bolded*  and systems failure are real, and the all-too-human inclination to cast around for a single scapegoat -- one Individual, one Bad Apple, one focus on whom everything can be blamed -- is a sort of abdication from the hard necessary work of tackling the systems stuff.  Insufficient access to, and stigma around, mental health support is another huge systems failure.

For the issue of gun violence and gun suicide at the hands of children, the BIGGEST system failure is guns in the hands of unsupervised children.  Making progress there -- safe storage laws, civil liabilities and criminal penalties on adult gun owners who do not store responsibly, red flag laws enabling LEO to remove weapons when warranted -- will have the biggest yield.

But all of the above issues also need work.

 

 

 

* not bolding social promotion only because the kid was in kindergarten so it hadn't come up yet in this particular case

[Heartstrings]

7 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

re systemic ways in which "accountability" is hindered

These are are real issues. Systemic faultlines like the bolded*  and systems failure are real, and the all-too-human inclination to cast around for a single scapegoat -- one Individual, one Bad Apple, one focus on whom everything can be blamed -- is a sort of abdication from the hard necessary work of tackling the systems stuff.  Insufficient access to, and stigma around, mental health support is another huge systems failure.

For the issue of gun violence and gun suicide at the hands of children, the BIGGEST system failure is guns in the hands of unsupervised children.  Making progress there -- safe storage laws, civil liabilities and criminal penalties on adult gun owners who do not store responsibly, red flag laws enabling LEO to remove weapons when warranted -- will have the biggest yield.

But all of the above issues also need work.

 

 

 

* not bolding social promotion only because the kid was in kindergarten so it hadn't come up yet in this particular case

While we are working on all of this (very necessary) work we need parents, teachers, principals to quickly wrap their heads around the facts .  Yes, tiny children can and do have access to deadly weapons, yes, tiny children do have violent urges and will act upon them, with deadly consequences.  The time for this failure of imagination around small children and gun violence has past.   It’s no longer acceptable to not take a threat by a 6 year old seriously just because they are itty bitty.    

[Pam in CT]

4 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

While we are working on all of this (very necessary) work we need parents, teachers, principals to quickly wrap their heads around the facts .  Yes, tiny children can and do have access to deadly weapons, yes, tiny children do have violent urges and will act upon them, with deadly consequences.  The time for this failure of imagination around small children and gun violence has past.   It’s no longer acceptable to not take a threat by a 6 year old seriously just because they are itty bitty.    

Absolutely. 

Because itty bitty 6 year olds have ALWAYS had incredibly strong emotions, the cognitive capacity to make and act on a plan, and on-average weak impulse control; and in the current environment they can and do also have guns in their backpack.

[Heartstrings]

1 minute ago, Pam in CT said:

Absolutely. 

Because itty bitty 6 year olds have ALWAYS had incredibly strong emotions, the cognitive capacity to make and act on a plan, and on-average weak impulse control; and in the current environment they can and do also have guns in their backpack.

I know at one my point my husband tried to “prove” to me that our 3 or 4 year old at the time wasn’t strong enough to pull back the thingy to chamber a bullet on the hand gun and was truly shocked and upset to find that he could in fact do it, easily and pretty much knew how without much instruction because it’s fairly intuitive.  He had to rethink a lot that day.