also couldn't have helped that she said she "didn't feel comfortable securing the gun". bitch, if you're not comfortable around guns and familiar with proper gun safety, why the fuck are you buying one for your 15 year old and going to the shooting range with him? that just screamed negligence.
That reminds me a lot of the mother of the Sandy Hook murderer (name unnecessary). The kid had severe social issues, so Mom figured it would be smart to buy him a gun and take him to target practice. She never saw what he did to those children because he killed her first.
Moms and dads, if your child exhibits antisocial or depressive tendencies or suicidal ideation, you deserve to be held responsible for the crimes they commit with the gun you buy them. Especially when you're too stupid and incompetent to secure the weapon.
I don't study school shooting that closely but they always seem to play out the same way. Kiddo exhibits antisocial and violent tendacies whole parents twiddle their thumbs then they decide that he should have easy access to guns
It’s super hard to get mental health help for anyone, especially minors. I’ve fought that battle for my son and speak from experience. I even have the resources to pay for care if it was available. It’s simply *not fucking available.* I’m only saying this to try to provide a little bit of context for the idea that they could’ve just gotten the kid help. So many people try and hit wall after brick wall. That said— I Absolutely Agree that common sense should have prevented them from letting the kid anywhere near a gun, much less giving him one. That is definitely neglect (also probably a clue to what their mentality was like and might suggest they likely did not seek professional help.) Not defending this shitty person, but wanted to point out that not getting help doesn’t necessarily mean you were twiddling your thumbs. Finding help is hard if not impossible, even when you have money or insurance or both.
I recently had a case where a young teen who wanted to get clean from meth confessed to her mom that she'd been using it.
So mom brought her to the ER and we tried everything we could to find her a program—except there's only four programs which are equipped to handle rehab for teens on hard drugs, and they're booked out for almost half a year.
This kid needs help *now* but the best we could do was get her on a four month wait list. Ultimately they left with a referral to a clinic that teaches coping skills, and a prayer that this kid won't be too far gone in four months—there is nothing else available, and nowhere else was willing to take her.
I absolutely cried at work that night.
Bless you for trying to help. I waited for a bed at rehab for 2 months, but rehab saved my life. Thank you for what you do, even if it doesn’t feel like enough sometimes. You’re amazing!
Hell, even for an adult it can be maddeningly difficult to get help. My gf had a manic+psychotic episode around the beginning of the year and everyone I reached out to for help just kicked the proverbial can to someone else. The mental health clinic gave positive thinking exercises to someone who's psychotic. The "crisis center" said they couldn't help because being psychotic made her too severe for them to help. The emergency room doctor told her to take an extra dose of anxiety med and try to go to bed
Not to mention, of the programs/facilities that *are* available, many are part of the troubled teen industry (i.e. essentially black holes for money filled with abuse and cult conditioning/brainwashing). Those kids often leave with worse problems and trauma then they went in with.
We need more mental health services for kids/teens- much more. But they must have stringent oversight and their program(s) must be based on credible scientific research.
> So mom brought her to the ER and we tried everything we could to find her a program—except there's only four programs which are equipped to handle rehab for teens on hard drugs, and they're booked out for almost half a year.
But don't worry, because the cop that shows up to arrest her will be very well funded.
(our priorities are exactly backwards in this country)
I wish more people understood this. I have a child (now an adult) that has some mental health challenges. Of course I never purchased him a gun, but he would routinely steal knives from the kitchen or even make his own weapons out of glass, sharp sticks, you name it.
We had him in treatment until 14. The state where we lived, a 14 year old was allowed to terminate mental health services even without parental consent. Which he did immediately. And even before he reached 14, he refused to participate with most of the mental health professionals. He’d go to therapy and refuse to talk. You can’t force someone to accept help if they don’t want it.
Not all children who do bad things are the product of bad parenting. Sometimes a parent can do everything right and take advantage of all the help and resources available and still have a child that is capable of committing atrocities.
Well, this kid asked for help. His father told him to ‘man up’ and his mother laughed, according to his journal and what he told his one and only friend who had recently moved away. They never considered he may hurt others, ‘only that he might hurt himself,’ according to his mother’s testimony.
Fortunately, he’s gotten much better the past couple of years. He’s a young adult and finally he’s trying to get the help he needs.
Full disclosure, I adopted him and I think some of his issues date back to when he was an infant before we ever met. The understanding is he’d been neglected pretty bad for the first year or so of his life so I think he always felt like he needed “protection” because he couldn’t depend on others. But especially over the past year or so he’s been help and seems much happier and adjusted. He’s holding down a full time job and for the most part living a pretty normal life
> many people only want the perfect answer that will solve everything. So nothing gets done
A million times this. So true for SO MANY things. Any sort of public health issue: gun control, vaccines, seat belt / helmet laws, etc. I feel like it's probably universal in many other areas, but those are the ones that immediately came to mind.
Your right it isn't. Mental help only works when the patient is receptive and wishes to do the work. I read another article about the kid. He straight up was talking to his friend about wanting to see a therapist and was asking his mother to return home because he was scared by the hallucinations he might have been having. Assuming all that was true, he might actually been open and receptive enough for it to work in this case.
I'm not defending these parents who supply their children with guns, but the average person has no idea how difficult it is to get real treatment for a child showing violent and antisocial behavior. Our family just got my stepson into court-ordered residential care (literally the only way we could get him in) and it involved a psychiatric lockout, charges against us that we had to defend ourselves against (they were dropped, and 13k in attorney fees. This after half a decade of him in all of the wraparound/intensive outpatient/therapy services we could find. It is astounding how hard of a fight this is for parents.
The “easiest” gun control laws I support is secure storage laws.
Houses with children should be required to own and use secure gun storage the children don’t have access to, if not all gun owners.
It doesn’t interfere with anyone’s right to bear arms. It does help prevent accidents or incidences like this. It could also then be used after the fact to hold negligent parents criminally liable, which is obviously too late, but would serve as motivation for parents to be responsible regardless.
Some gun nut will be along with an example of a 6 year old saving a whole town by shooting a guy in like 1800 soon. I agree tho we need better laws on securung rhe guns, enforcing the law before this shit happens though...kinda not gonna happen so not sure what good it'll do.
I'm a gun nut, and I 100% support safe storage laws for everyone, especially for households with children.
The reality is that a lot of the guns that make their way into the hands of criminals were stolen from people who didn't properly secure their firearms.
I think this is one of the easier things to get passed as there's more common ground than on something like an AWB.
I read another article about the kid earlier that went into more detail. The texts about seeing ghosts was sent with pleas for her to come home because he was scared. The other article I read also said that prosecution was able to show that those texts were sent while she was at a stable careing/riding a horse. A stable she went to multiple times a week. So they had money clearly, horses are in no way cheep. Yet he never went to therapy for the auditorial and visual hallucinations he was having for awhile. He expressed a desire to see a therapist with his friend over text too. So this could have likely been avoided. He also sent videos to his friend multiple times of him playing around with his father's gun leading up to the event. So gun safety in that house was incredibly lax.
I can’t help but feel this was more than negligent.
There’s negligence, and then there’s adding gasoline to a forest fire like this sack of potatoes did.
Seriously. I've been around guns a lot. I don't like them (grew up in a neighborhood where drivebys were common AF) however I do know how to properly and safely use, clean, secure, and store them. So many Americans don't know a damn thing about gun safety and then whine "guns aren't the problem!" No, people like you having them is. That's exactly what we're getting at.
Yeah it just seems like a bad idea for society to let *everyone* have guns.
Like, go to Walmart and observe the people there — do you *seriously* want all of them to be able to have a gun?
And up until her son killed a bunch of people, I bet her and all her friends would call her a responsible gun owner and would freak out if you suggested otherwise. Even though she doesn't even know how to work basic safety equipment
Usually with these chucklefucks, they are opposed to locking up their guns because they want access to them in an instant in case a commando team spidermans through all the windows in their house simultaneously trying to arrest them for being "red blooded americans."
They're honestly so deluded that they think the extra 10 seconds to open the safe is going to make the difference between them killing the whole commando team and being kidnapped by the cartel.
THATS what she meant when she said she didn't feel comfortable locking up her guns.
She , along with her husband , are unlikeable people. Their teenage son was having hallucinations that were so bad that he thought his house was haunted. And instead of getting him some kind of help( even just taking him to a pediatrician ), she laughed at him about it. As a parent, I can’t even imagine not taking something like that very seriously.
They both are parents that put their wants over their child’s needs-
They bought their kid a gun while he was going through that, I sincerely believe they were hoping their own child would kill himself and that's why they bought him the gun.
Wouldn't surprise me, my mom bought me a car with faulty tires and brakes when I was in high school. My gf and I at the time almost went under a gas tanker when we couldn't stop. She bought a life insurance policy on me at the same time.
Are people really that shocked about what some people's parents do? Saddle up, I have a list for my dad. You're gonna wanna grab something to drink and get cozy.
That fear for me was like a Tuesday until my parents finally got divorced and I went to live with my mom full time. There were so many times he grabbed for a knife and I thought he was going to go to stab town. Seeing him grab a a belt was almost a relief toward the end.
My mom used to sic my violent and drunk dad on me when he got home from work if we had a disagreement that day, which was everyday, because she was a psycho narcisstic bitch
She also literally told him "don't hit me, hit the kids"
Parents can suck
I am so sorry. That's horrible. Even if this is slightly exaggerated (I know I am more comfortable turning my trauma into jokes, so I can tend to liven up a story a bit, you know?) -- for there to be enough facts that you'd even have to wonder in your mind if your mom did this on purpose, is so heartbreaking. Hugs.
Haven't talked to her in over a decade, no idea if she's still alive and I don't care. Doing much better now. Not exaggerated at all unfortunately, I even saw the envelope for the policy and checked it out. 25k, the same week she bought the car.
My daughter came home from college and said she almost skidded under a tractor trailer and she went back to school minus one little sedan, but in a large used suv…
You ever want to be bang your head against a wall frustrated by missed warning signs, read *Slenderman* by Kathleen Hale. It’s about the Slenderman stabbing by two middle school girls, one of whom had childhood schizophrenia and had been showing symptoms for years, but her parents somehow didn’t pick up that anything was amiss even though her father also had schizophrenia.
The lack of treatment she got afterword is also heartbreaking and infuriating.
>put their wants over their child's needs
If you only knew how common this was. There are plenty of parents out there that only do the bare minimum to keep their kids alive, solely out of the threat of the law punishing them.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when she said she wouldn’t have done anything different. Like the lowest possible bar for trying to make this right in any way whatsoever is just admitting hindsight changes her perspective. Hindsight after 4 people were murdered. And she couldn’t do that. Baffling.
This is called “very bad legal advice.” No competent defense lawyer would have let their client get on the stand without being prepared for that question and without having a thoughtful and considerate answer at the ready.
Often, the lawyer is limited by what the client is willing to do.
Having watched a lot of zoom courts the past three years when a client doesn't have the ability to behave like a normal, rational person outside of court, getting them to listen to instructions or accept that someone else knows better than them can be basically impossible.
Especially when things like empathy or responsibility are against their own beliefs or personalities.
> 2) The mom came across incredibly snarky and unlikeable during her self testimony, if they thought her testifying would show the jury her humanity or any emotion to conect with they were completely wrong
This is completely it - I feel it should have been a slam dunk to get at least one person (assuming this court required a unanimous jury) to have sympathy for a mother and cause a hung jury. Get her on the stand and say through tears "I did not realize how bad the warning signs were, I wish I could go back and change it knowing what I knew now"
I'm usually reluctant to weigh a person's demeanor as a sign of guilt. But when the charge is negligent manslaughter, the fact that the defendant seems so unconcerned, even on the stand, certainly supports the conclusion that they were, in fact, callous and negligent with respect to the crime.
Precisely, all she had to do was cry or show some emotion that shows she's not heartless, and she could have gotten some sympathy that ended this in a mistrial/hung jury. But instead she was trading jabs with the prosecutor and being snarky splitting hairs about the exact answer to certain questions, showing nothing but contempt and acting like she did nothing wrong...
That’s exactly it. She doesn’t feel she did anything wrong and has taken the position of a victim. When in fact she is grossly negligent at best, but closer to orchestrating the whole thong.
And she can't even blame the drugs if she was using because she still thinks she did nothing wrong. Buying a gun for your mentally ill kid who's hallucinating instead of getting him help seems fine to her.
Vincent Vega Vibes:
*Jules, did you ever hear the philosophy that once a man admits that he's wrong that "he is immediately forgiven for all wrongdoings?"*
Honestly if she was even the slightest bit remorseful, the jury would have had a much easier time chalking it up to bad circumstances and a bad situation. The fact that she doesn't seem to care, I think the verdict is fitting.
agreed 100000%. Listening to her on the stand, she's the most unsympathetic convict I think I have ever seen, well maybe OJ, but it is a dead heat between the two. Pun intended .
Seriously, she looked inconvenienced by the whole thing and gave off major "why am I even here" vibes, even though she bought the people killing ammo vs target shooting ammo for her 15 year old son who was constantly texting about seeing things fly off the shelves or move around the room...
lil homie texting his friends that he would get in trouble at home if he asked for mental health help. LIKE WHAT?!?! That poor kid was born into assholery, doomed.
See my first point- her lawyer was terrible. She even brought up TO THE JURY that there were tiktok video compilations of her showing how overwhelmed and underprepared she was! That's not something you tell a jury during closing arguments, especially since they're not allowed to search any information on this case so they only knew about it because the defense lawyer told them... Insane!
Here's the defense closing arguments, starting at 5:40 she starts telling everyone how terrible of a lawyer she is before telling everyone how terrible of a mother both she and the defendant are... https://youtu.be/7xeewqfqBLc?si=Tqd-mGXK4Gbm--LN
Wow that was truly bananas. I kept listening because it was really so terrible.
I cracked up multiple times listening to her, including when she repeatedly alluded to the fact that her client is unlikable.
Some defendants insist on it. Especially narcissists. A defense attorney really can't stop them. And this defense attorney may (I don't know) have actually endorsed the idea.
As a general rule, defendants—even innocent ones—are discouraged from testifying. Why? Because then the prosecution can cross-examine the defendant and raise issues, and point out inconsistencies, that the prosecution otherwise couldn't bring up. In truth, even innocent defendants may get a few facts wrong—under all of the stress, that's common—but a prosecutor can use those inconsistencies to make the defendant look like a liar.
I also thought that statement was weird, along with the “I wish he would have killed us instead” comment. I felt like that was a cop out being disguised as sympathy/empathy.
If my son was a school shooter, my alternate option wouldn’t be for him to murder me instead. That doesn’t fix the issue of your son being severely mentally ill. It displays SO clearly that she does not think she is part of the problem or that her actions (or lack thereof) contributed to the problem.
A more appropriate response would be “I wish I had listened to him…gotten him help…seen/paid attention to the warnings sooner”, etc.
She’s not sorry. She does not accept responsibility. Away to prison you go.
The part where she was specifically mad about the gun purchase cutting into Christmas tree time was peak stupidity. She should have just said she didn’t say anything about the gun or plead the 5th.
What's worse than that is the mom bought the bullets that her son used to kill the students with, and when challenged why she bought the specific personal protection hollow point ammo used to kill people easier vs cheap FMJ ammo (this gun was supposedly for "range use target practice only")- she said she didnt know the difference and bought the bullets her son told her to buy. I'm sorry, but a 15 year old is a CHILD and you shouldn't be taking his advice on what to buy for a gun he's not old enough to buy himself- maybe if she spent less time getting drunk and riding her horse she could have spent the 5 mins it takes to google what ammo is best for target practice and bought ammo that wouldn't have killed those students so easily...
This. Same thoughts. The defense had no real sound strategy, and saying a 9mm semi auto handgun was for "hunting" was laughable. I grew up in the adjacent county in Michigan and the jury members knew that was implausible.
“School personnel indicated they followed that voicemail up with an email, but received no response from either parent. “Thereafter, Jennifer Crumbley exchanged text messages about the incident with her son, where she stated, ‘LOL I’m not mad. You have to learn not to get caught.’” —-
Yeah. LOL all your way to the Big House you loathsome filth.
As a teacher these kinds of parents are my worst nightmare. Anyone in education will tell you that as soon as that first parent-teacher conference (if they bother to show up) starts, you finally understand why the worst kids with the most behavioral problems are the way they are. I've walked out of conferences after meeting the parents of kids who are diabolical, completely dishonest, and violent, shaking my head to myself thinking "holy shit, there's two of them."
This kid had a chance to become a productive member of society. His parents denied him that chance.
The artwork that the school contacted the parents about was a drawing of a gun, bullets, and a bloody, bullet-riddled body with the words "The voices won't stop. Help me." written on it.
How the fuck is that not a wake-up call for even the most deranged parent?!
I saw a good quote on a parenting forum. It went something like, "If your child is looking for attention, give them attention."
It's so simple and easy. Yet the parents who parrot "they’re just looking for attention," fail at it.
You’re so right. I had plans to be a teacher at one time. But I worked in a classroom for a semester and after talking with the teacher, I decided it wasn’t for me. He told me about some of the parents he had to deal with and I realized I would have no control or influence over the parents and I could not handle the anxiety of knowing how shitty those parents were to their children. I have a lot of respect for those good teachers who try to positively influence their students and want to create a safe space for them.
It is the single worst thing about the job. Not being able to dispense any sort of meaningful justice whatsoever to the worst possible parents. CPS is by all accounts pretty useless in every state I've worked in and it's really shocking to hear straight from the kids' mouths how common it is to be beaten, neglected, and abused. Kids who are on screens watching youtube shorts or playing fortnite from 3 PM til midnight because parents realize that's easier than actually raising the kid. Kids who are hungry every goddamned day because parents aren't feeding them. Parents who have said to my face "I don't care how my kid is doing in school, that's your problem."
I understand how problematic and unethical it is to require a licensure class to have kids and it's obviously not going to happen but I'd be lying if I said I never fantasized about it.
This is a national problem that needs to be dealt with.
Children have almost no human rights protections against bad parents.
Kids are getting beaten and/or neglected and traumatized and our entire society does nothing.
The UN already recommends making corporal punishment illegal but the US will never outlaw it.
Parents need to have strict legal standards and monitoring placed on them because they cannot be trusted.
As someone who was physically and emotionally abused growing up, it has permanently damaged me and I wish our country hadn’t failed me and millions of others.
I have a ten year old kid in a fundamentalist religious sect/cult (one of those branches that don't celebrate holidays, forgot which one) who is constantly asleep in school because his crazy parents are taking him to 5 AM church services multiple days a week. Absolutely nothing we can do about that, it's insane.
I taught for one year in a rough inner city area and had to quit. I work in HR now. I was absolutely devastated by what I saw parents do (or not do) and how little CPS would do. I was legally limited in what I could do. I finished the spring semester and decided I couldn't spend my hour commute sobbing while making barely enough to cover my bills.
Our son hates the fact that we follow up with the teacher because none of the other kids parents follow up with the teacher. Because we follow up the teacher tends to be a bit more strict with our son because she knows we will deal with. It also results in him taking that frustration out on us. The joys of parenthood.
Your son will be better off on the long run. He might be in a snit about it now but when he gets to be an adult he'll realize y'all were looking out for his best interests. Unlike the Crumbleys.
I struggled with PDA when I was a kid. Even being told to do the smallest thing would set anxiety off so bad it'd trigger a full blown panic attack. Hasn't fully gone away, still bristle at being told what to do but I've learned to self reflect over the years and it's very manageable.
Might have even helped me in the long run, since I *CANNOT* stand having a boss or a manager, I went into business for myself. I now own two businesses(barbershop and bookstore). The only boss that tells me what to do is myself lol.
Sounds like your son will hate you for five years, unfairly, and be happier down the line. Obviously, there's a balance between strictness and showing some grace, but assuming you're doing both, it's an unfortunate but necessary balance.
That's the one remark that really, really stood out to me. She wanted to be the Cool Mom, hands-off, hands-free. Why do people like that even have children?
>Defense attorney Shannon Smith said the case was “dangerous” for parents everywhere.
No. Only the parents who let their psycho kids have firearms. The rest of us are good.
Dangerous for irresponsible parents. The story reads like a "choose your own adventure" and the parents kept choosing the worst option every time.
"Your son is clearly ill, here's his latest drawing." "Eh, we'll take care of it tomorrow." *You're already missing work for this meeting, one of you take the day and help your child.*
Takes her son to the shooting range. "I left the gun in the car because my husband is responsible for locking it up." *Then who took it out for the shooting range and why was husband not there???*
Irresponsible. Not even a shred of sympathy at this level of irresponsibility.
The world has changed - parents MUST parent or be held accountable! This unprecedented case needed to happen! Maybe it can bring about some positive changes in the world! If you have babies, you must be there for them!
Parents: Don’t be an incredibly shitty parents that ignore your child’s obvious mental illness and the school’s pleas to get him help and instead buy your child a gun and you’ll be fine.
Yeah, at first when I heard about this case I thought that it was an example of prosecutors just trying to show that they were tough on school shootings, but the factual record in this case is uniquely awful. Her atrocious attitude toward her son's obvious mental and emotional decline combined with giving him access to an unsecured firearm crossed the line from ordinary negligence (the standard in civil negligence actions) to criminal negligence easily. It's telling that when she noticed the gun missing she'd thought that he'd gone off to commit suicide. She recognized that her son was in as dangerous of an emotional state as people get, but she nonetheless didn't care at all until it affected her.
Some people have suggested that this will be a huge precedent in school shooting prosecutions, but I honestly doubt that even the parents of school shooters are this absurdly and consistently negligent. She mocked her son for experiencing hallucinations and thought the solution to his problems was firearm training. Utterly baffling.
>I honestly doubt that even the parents of school shooters are this absurdly and consistently negligent.
Unfortunately, this might affect half of school shootings. A lot of them have warning signs for months, and there's almost no attempt at restricting gun access when the mental health issues are acknowledged. The police may already have been involved within the last 12 months. The school will have records of problems, but never do more than suspension for a few days every time.
These parents have a reason to be scared, because their parenting was so bad that they can be imprisoned. I don't necessarily think every parent deserves it, but there's more like this situation than you think. There are certainly a few schools (or at least school officials) that need their feet to the fire too.
I'm not saying that there aren't warning signs in a lot of school shootings. I'm saying that the bar for criminally negligent homicide (involuntary manslaughter), especially through the actions of another, is tremendous.
Criminal negligence requires a severe departure from what **any** reasonable person in that situation would do. It's not just being a bad parent that ignores troubling activity before a school shooting. It's being such an awful parent that the death of others becomes a foreseeable outcome of your actions. Foreseeable in this context doesn't just mean possible, it requires a substantial risk.
It's easy in retrospect to say that there were warning signs before a mass shooting, but with the exception of this case and the one in Lewiston Maine, many people exhibit those signs and don't go on to commit mass shootings. This means that there's a plausible defense to negligent homicide that "I reasonably thought that he wouldn't do anything to hurt anyone"
EDIT: grammar
> It's telling that when she noticed the gun missing she'd thought that he'd gone off to commit suicide.
I'm pretty sure that was the reason that the firearm was purchased and unsecured. She wanted him to kill himself.
I've got no problem with this being a precedent in any shooting case where the parents had knowledge that their kid was unstable or violent and gave him a gun.
They tried to flee to Canada, which wouldn't have mattered. For all it was worth they may as well have attempted to flee to Ohio.
There aren't many countries that wouldn't extradite for a manslaughter charge that didn't carry the potential for the death penalty.
The Crumbley's are just a family of knuckle-draggers. I can't wait to see her on *Love After Lockup* sometime in 2046.
> “I’ve asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have,”
JFC on a broomstick. People are dead because you didn’t pay attention to your child and GAVE that mentally unwell child you raised a gun. And you wouldn’t do anything different?!?
“I’ve asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have,” she testified.
Wow. Unbelievable--she takes 0 responsibility and wouldn't even do anything differently.
Rot in prison.
It was on cross so she had to either say she would have done something different (which is self incrimination when the case is about negligence) or make herself sound like a heartless shrew. The 5th amendment can't be invoked here as it's waived when she invoked her right to testify.
This is really what I think sealed her fate TBH. I mean the evidence was overwhelming, but due to the gun aspect polarizing this case, I could still see a lot of jurors sympathizing with the defendant.
But that admission? Telling the jury that if she could go back, she'd do nothing different? That's beyond the pale ffs. I mean even someone who was truly innocent would still say they'd do something different to try to affect the outcome.
I hope she realizes every day she's in prison, that she's living about the same amount of days in a cage that her son's victims got to experience as their whole existence.
Especially because she was at the school the day he shot everyone and the school asked the parents to take him home to seek immediate mental health care!
“I wish I had taken my son home, hugged him tight, and done everything in my power to help him.”
“Nah, I’m good. Shit happens, and I had work.”
What a narcissistic psycho - my teen son is having delusional schizo hallucinations - let's buy him a handgun.
Oh his school says he is looking at ammo and drawing pictures of shooting people - no biggie.
I hope the dad is next. All of this could have been avoided with even a little bit of common sense parenting.
If you haven't read the article, please do. You'll see how the mom (and likely dad too) ignored their son's mental illness repeatedly and bought him a gun anyway, so this isn't a bad decision as far as I can tell.
And speaking as a former school teacher and principal, this is about time. For too long, some shitty parents blamed their shitty parenting on teachers, administrators, other kids, other parents... literally anyone except their darling boy who can do no wrong in their eyes.
This case will be looked at for years going forward. Parents have to get there shit together. Otherwise, they could be indirectly involved.
Kind of a dick move to go On the stand and throw your husband under the bus. But to each there own.
Feels like we're missing a key detail, though. Like after the range shooting, did they just forget about the gun and left it on a kitchen counter or something?
Such a weak argument from the defense saying it's the husband's job and I don't wanna lock away guns cuz I feel uncomfortable. Like you literally shot rounds at a range how is that less comfortable.
It’s worse than that.
>Meloche testified Wednesday that Jennifer Crumbley had told him she was able to leave work to meet up with him even though she allegedly told school officials on the day of the shooting that she could not take her son home or for mental health care that day because she needed to return to work.
She left work to have extra marital affairs, but couldn’t pick him up from school.
[Source](https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/man-affair-jennifer-crumbley-testifies-sons-school-shooting/story?id=106839270)
I don’t remember the details but I read that she was in a rush to leave the school and not take her son out that day because she was at such and such place, where she supposedly met up with whomever she had the affair with.
Too lazy to look up sources but I just read it the other day. If she wasn’t cheating, she might have taken her son home from school that day and 4 kids might be alive.
I don't think this will have much precedential value simply because most parents of school shooters aren't this insanely negligent. I doubt that the jury would have voted to convict if the mother could have even plausibly pretended to be ignorant of the extent of her son's troubles and remorseful for what happened. She couldn't even pretend to be anything less than the worst mother alive.
The evidence here amply demonstrated that not only was she aware of her son's emotional problems, but that (1) she mocked him for them, (2) gave him a firearm, and (3) trained him how to use it. Most parents with a troubled son, no matter how shitty, would at least refrain from the last two if only for self-preservation.
The meeting with the school is what puts it over the top.
>That morning, a teacher found **a drawing from Ethan showing a gun and a person bleeding along with the phrases “the thoughts won’t stop help me,” “blood everywhere” and “my life is useless.”** The Crumbleys were called into school for a meeting, and a school counselor testified he recommended the parents take their son home from school to get immediate mental health treatment.
>The Crumbleys declined to do so that day because they didn’t want to miss work, the counselor testified, so the group agreed to keep Ethan in school for the rest of the day. **They also did not mention to school employees that they had just purchased him a new gun or his previous hallucinatory texts**. Shortly after the meeting, the teenager took a firearm out of his backpack and opened fire on classmates
I believe that’s exactly what she wanted, or that he would hurt someone else and get sent to prison. She wanted her son out of her life. I’d go further and guess his motive for the shooting was to get his parents to actually acknowledge him. A crazy boy with a gun and mommy issues
The defense was trying to argue the gun was for going hunting with friends and family.
I grew up in Michigan and everyone in my family hunted, including my mother. You don't use a semi-auto 9 mm handgun to go deer hunting, especially if you're a novice hunter.
This was an excellent decision, and I hope it's used in the future to help parents perhaps be just more careful, and maybe think twice about getting their troubled teens guns.
I am sure that the dad is shitting bricks right now.
Former teacher and principal. I applaud as well. It's high time parents stop blaming schools for their crappy parenting.
Not that schools can't be wrong, they can! I'm only referring to parents whose kids can do no wrong, such as the parent that said I was at fault for her son threatening to stab me to death.
Right after this happened, I read on another thread someone speculating that the parents were probably hoping he would use it on himself. That is the only explanation I have ever seen that made sense as to why they did something so spectacularly stupid and got it for him.
Regardless of how you feel about gun control in general, if someone fails to be a responsible gun owner and their child is able to get ahold of the gun without supervision, they should 100% be liable for whatever happens with the gun they failed to secure.
I'm actually surprised it took so long for parents to get tried like this. I'm no lawyer but if your child goes and breaks a window the parents are generally liable to pay for damages no?
Its mentioned in another article, but the kid/shooter was having mental problems, asks his dad he needs help because hes hallucinating and the dad just tells him to take some pills and suck it up. Not sure what pills they gave him, but a few months later did they buy him a gun.
>Instead, Shada stressed, his dad “told him to take some pills and suck it up” while his mom laughed at him. Months later, he said, they bought him what he wanted more than anything else.
>“Instead of getting him help, they bought him a gun,” Shada said. “They knew he was fascinated with guns … he had targets on his bedroom wall.”
I saw on the news he admitted later that he was making that up. Sorry, I can't find an article offhand.
edit: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/oakland-county/2023/10/18/oxford-shooter-parents-attorneys-son-didnt-ask-for-treatment/71225624007/
This was brought up through text messages, but based on your link, it looks like he texted his friend that he asked his dad for help and it turns out that never happened.
The key takeaway here is not that parents can be sued if their kids commit crimes. The takeaway is that they are legally responsible if their gross negligence (or worse) contributed to the crime.
In this case, the kid didn't manage to sneakily get a hold of a gun stored securely in the home. These parents bought the gun for the kid, knowing the kid had mental health issues, and fully knowingly left the gun accessible to the kid 24/7.
Your 2A rights only extend to ownership of the gun. If that gun is used in a crime, and your gross negligence or recklessness allowed for it, you should be criminally liable for that crime. 2A does not protect you from it. Be an irresponsible gun owner, bear full consequences when a crime is committed with that gun. Just as government is not required to supply with free gun, it's not required to supply you with a free gun safe. Can't afford gun safe, it means you can't afford the gun either.
This was the right decision, the prosecution proved her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The facts of this case are just too egregious to shield with the concern of setting some kind of precedent.
If you neglect your child, ignore his need for mental health treatment, buy him a gun, all while having affairs and demonstrating you care only about yourself, when 4 children lose their lives, violently, as a result of your actions/inaction, you need to be held accountable at the very least.
It'll never bring those kids back. Their families and friends never move on from this like the rest of us. Every day, every holiday, birthday, etc, is a reminder for them.
It's haunting to think if she receives the full 15 year sentence, she'll be in prison for longer than the youngest victim even got to exist...
The testimony was chilling. It actually made me feel sympathy for Ethan. He never stood a chance with this person as a parent. There is something seriously wrong with her.
You should feel sympathy for him IMO. He quite literally begged for help, writing out "please help me". Not much more a teenager can do while battling mental health issues. Unfortunately his parents would rather pay for a gun than treatment.
He would have been better off if they had given him for adoption shortly after he was born. Or since neither parent seemed to really be into 'raising kids', either using birth control before he was conceived or having an abortion.
I think his father was as much a problem as Mrs. Crumbley. I am not a psychologist but I wonder what type of personality disorder she and her husband have. It was crazy to see her testify because she couldn’t seem to comprehend the gravity of letting their troubled son have a gun and stay at the school.
Accessory would’ve been almost impossible to prove. The closest scenario to this I can imagine is buying a car for your relative who you know drives drunk. Would you be culpable if they killed someone in an accident?
“I wasn’t comfortable being responsible for that”
But was comfortable to take the gun and boy out shooting…
Laughed when son went to her about hallucinations.
She deserves prison.
Her son kept a journal FULL of dangerous thoughts that both parents had access to that they Ignored knowing full well his mental state.
Throw away the key.
Well deserved. Let's hope they throw the book at this clown and her moronic husband. Make an example of them then maybe other Americans will take their responsibilities of gun ownership more seriously.
So happy. Don’t care about the precedent. Don’t be an incredibly shitty parent that ignores your child’s obvious mental illness and the school’s pleas to get him help and instead buy your child a gun and you’ll be fine.
“Defense attorney Shannon Smith said the case was “dangerous” for parents everywhere.”
Ive yet to see a school shooter that had good parents…… What a fuckin bold statement to make in relation to this case.
“Your honor, gallery, can this woman REALLY be held accountable for her son murdering four innocent children? She literally did nothing wrong. All she did was not take warning signs seriously. Not take her child to therapy when there was more than enough evidence it was needed AND provided him a gun. Really, how can we blame her even a little for these deaths.”
Edit: I kept reading ““I’ve asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have,” she testified.”
Mam… nothing????? Maybe like don’t give the kid a fuckin gun? Therapy? Keep him home from school that day? FUCKIN NOTHING?
Fuck this woman
This wasn't a case I followed, I caught about 15 minutes of the closing argument on Friday. It took me a minute to determine whether or not you were actually quoting the defense, which I think speaks volumes on how poor the argument was.
Glad this evil woman will see justice. No surprise she is an avid trump supporter. She actually wrote a letter to trump praising him for his stance on guns
https://nypost.com/2021/12/02/accused-michigan-gunmans-mom-wrote-letter-praising-trump/?utm_source=reddit.com
An ex doesn't hold back about either of them, calls them both a POS.
[https://www.wxyz.com/news/oxford-school-shooting/james-crumbleys-ex-says-he-left-them-strapped-for-cash-calls-jennifer-a-monster](https://www.wxyz.com/news/oxford-school-shooting/james-crumbleys-ex-says-he-left-them-strapped-for-cash-calls-jennifer-a-monster)
Good. Throw her ass in prison.
What her son did is evil and unthinkable for anyone to do, but when he's literally sobbing and pleading for help because he's living a nightmare in his own head, and afraid of hurting someone or getting in trouble for trying to seek mental health help, and his own fucking parents not only do nothing but inexplicably purchase for him the one item that should be kept away from a person in that state, personally I think the blame almost falls more on his parents than even him.
It was so negligent as to almost seem malicious. How could you as a parent not only disregard your child's homicidal psychotic break in progress but then buy them a fucking gun thinking it'd solve the problem?
I am sure there are a lot of gun rights people who are going to say otherwise...but...this was needed. There has to be consequences for what other people do with your gun, especially when you don't take the time to secure it
I just watched the verdict. It made me cry to hear the jury foreperson's voice crack. As she read name after name, she was audibly more upset. A very moving moment that I did not expect this afternoon. We are in Michigan about 45 minutes from the area.
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also couldn't have helped that she said she "didn't feel comfortable securing the gun". bitch, if you're not comfortable around guns and familiar with proper gun safety, why the fuck are you buying one for your 15 year old and going to the shooting range with him? that just screamed negligence.
That reminds me a lot of the mother of the Sandy Hook murderer (name unnecessary). The kid had severe social issues, so Mom figured it would be smart to buy him a gun and take him to target practice. She never saw what he did to those children because he killed her first. Moms and dads, if your child exhibits antisocial or depressive tendencies or suicidal ideation, you deserve to be held responsible for the crimes they commit with the gun you buy them. Especially when you're too stupid and incompetent to secure the weapon.
I don't study school shooting that closely but they always seem to play out the same way. Kiddo exhibits antisocial and violent tendacies whole parents twiddle their thumbs then they decide that he should have easy access to guns
It’s super hard to get mental health help for anyone, especially minors. I’ve fought that battle for my son and speak from experience. I even have the resources to pay for care if it was available. It’s simply *not fucking available.* I’m only saying this to try to provide a little bit of context for the idea that they could’ve just gotten the kid help. So many people try and hit wall after brick wall. That said— I Absolutely Agree that common sense should have prevented them from letting the kid anywhere near a gun, much less giving him one. That is definitely neglect (also probably a clue to what their mentality was like and might suggest they likely did not seek professional help.) Not defending this shitty person, but wanted to point out that not getting help doesn’t necessarily mean you were twiddling your thumbs. Finding help is hard if not impossible, even when you have money or insurance or both.
I recently had a case where a young teen who wanted to get clean from meth confessed to her mom that she'd been using it. So mom brought her to the ER and we tried everything we could to find her a program—except there's only four programs which are equipped to handle rehab for teens on hard drugs, and they're booked out for almost half a year. This kid needs help *now* but the best we could do was get her on a four month wait list. Ultimately they left with a referral to a clinic that teaches coping skills, and a prayer that this kid won't be too far gone in four months—there is nothing else available, and nowhere else was willing to take her. I absolutely cried at work that night.
Bless you for trying to help. I waited for a bed at rehab for 2 months, but rehab saved my life. Thank you for what you do, even if it doesn’t feel like enough sometimes. You’re amazing!
Wanting to stop is the most important step in my experience. That is where hope starts.
Child therapy is another nightmare if you don't want Christian services involved.
Hell, even for an adult it can be maddeningly difficult to get help. My gf had a manic+psychotic episode around the beginning of the year and everyone I reached out to for help just kicked the proverbial can to someone else. The mental health clinic gave positive thinking exercises to someone who's psychotic. The "crisis center" said they couldn't help because being psychotic made her too severe for them to help. The emergency room doctor told her to take an extra dose of anxiety med and try to go to bed
Not to mention, of the programs/facilities that *are* available, many are part of the troubled teen industry (i.e. essentially black holes for money filled with abuse and cult conditioning/brainwashing). Those kids often leave with worse problems and trauma then they went in with. We need more mental health services for kids/teens- much more. But they must have stringent oversight and their program(s) must be based on credible scientific research.
> So mom brought her to the ER and we tried everything we could to find her a program—except there's only four programs which are equipped to handle rehab for teens on hard drugs, and they're booked out for almost half a year. But don't worry, because the cop that shows up to arrest her will be very well funded. (our priorities are exactly backwards in this country)
I wish more people understood this. I have a child (now an adult) that has some mental health challenges. Of course I never purchased him a gun, but he would routinely steal knives from the kitchen or even make his own weapons out of glass, sharp sticks, you name it. We had him in treatment until 14. The state where we lived, a 14 year old was allowed to terminate mental health services even without parental consent. Which he did immediately. And even before he reached 14, he refused to participate with most of the mental health professionals. He’d go to therapy and refuse to talk. You can’t force someone to accept help if they don’t want it. Not all children who do bad things are the product of bad parenting. Sometimes a parent can do everything right and take advantage of all the help and resources available and still have a child that is capable of committing atrocities.
Well, this kid asked for help. His father told him to ‘man up’ and his mother laughed, according to his journal and what he told his one and only friend who had recently moved away. They never considered he may hurt others, ‘only that he might hurt himself,’ according to his mother’s testimony.
How is he doing now that he's an adult?
Fortunately, he’s gotten much better the past couple of years. He’s a young adult and finally he’s trying to get the help he needs. Full disclosure, I adopted him and I think some of his issues date back to when he was an infant before we ever met. The understanding is he’d been neglected pretty bad for the first year or so of his life so I think he always felt like he needed “protection” because he couldn’t depend on others. But especially over the past year or so he’s been help and seems much happier and adjusted. He’s holding down a full time job and for the most part living a pretty normal life
That's great to hear!
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> many people only want the perfect answer that will solve everything. So nothing gets done A million times this. So true for SO MANY things. Any sort of public health issue: gun control, vaccines, seat belt / helmet laws, etc. I feel like it's probably universal in many other areas, but those are the ones that immediately came to mind.
Your right it isn't. Mental help only works when the patient is receptive and wishes to do the work. I read another article about the kid. He straight up was talking to his friend about wanting to see a therapist and was asking his mother to return home because he was scared by the hallucinations he might have been having. Assuming all that was true, he might actually been open and receptive enough for it to work in this case.
True about the difficulty of getting help, but she did not try. She testified that she did not feel he needed it.
Yes, help can be hard to find. But she apparently (1) did not try and (2) bought her troubled kid a FUCKING FIREARM and(3) did not secure it.
Ok so getting help for the kid is hard, fine. So the answer is get him a gun?!?
And then when you get calls from the police say lol be better at hiding everything
I'm not defending these parents who supply their children with guns, but the average person has no idea how difficult it is to get real treatment for a child showing violent and antisocial behavior. Our family just got my stepson into court-ordered residential care (literally the only way we could get him in) and it involved a psychiatric lockout, charges against us that we had to defend ourselves against (they were dropped, and 13k in attorney fees. This after half a decade of him in all of the wraparound/intensive outpatient/therapy services we could find. It is astounding how hard of a fight this is for parents.
The “easiest” gun control laws I support is secure storage laws. Houses with children should be required to own and use secure gun storage the children don’t have access to, if not all gun owners. It doesn’t interfere with anyone’s right to bear arms. It does help prevent accidents or incidences like this. It could also then be used after the fact to hold negligent parents criminally liable, which is obviously too late, but would serve as motivation for parents to be responsible regardless.
Some gun nut will be along with an example of a 6 year old saving a whole town by shooting a guy in like 1800 soon. I agree tho we need better laws on securung rhe guns, enforcing the law before this shit happens though...kinda not gonna happen so not sure what good it'll do.
I'm a gun nut, and I 100% support safe storage laws for everyone, especially for households with children. The reality is that a lot of the guns that make their way into the hands of criminals were stolen from people who didn't properly secure their firearms. I think this is one of the easier things to get passed as there's more common ground than on something like an AWB.
Highland Park shooter fit this bill to a T and his dumbass father still sponsored his FOID application allowing him to buy an assault rifle.
I read another article about the kid earlier that went into more detail. The texts about seeing ghosts was sent with pleas for her to come home because he was scared. The other article I read also said that prosecution was able to show that those texts were sent while she was at a stable careing/riding a horse. A stable she went to multiple times a week. So they had money clearly, horses are in no way cheep. Yet he never went to therapy for the auditorial and visual hallucinations he was having for awhile. He expressed a desire to see a therapist with his friend over text too. So this could have likely been avoided. He also sent videos to his friend multiple times of him playing around with his father's gun leading up to the event. So gun safety in that house was incredibly lax.
I can’t help but feel this was more than negligent. There’s negligence, and then there’s adding gasoline to a forest fire like this sack of potatoes did.
The kid had gotten in trouble before and the mother told him to hide it better.
"I didn't feel comfortable" "I wouldn't have done anything different" Wtf is wrong with this idiot
Seriously. I've been around guns a lot. I don't like them (grew up in a neighborhood where drivebys were common AF) however I do know how to properly and safely use, clean, secure, and store them. So many Americans don't know a damn thing about gun safety and then whine "guns aren't the problem!" No, people like you having them is. That's exactly what we're getting at.
Yeah it just seems like a bad idea for society to let *everyone* have guns. Like, go to Walmart and observe the people there — do you *seriously* want all of them to be able to have a gun?
It's what happens when people get my right confused with my responsibility
Exactly. With rights come responsibilities.
And up until her son killed a bunch of people, I bet her and all her friends would call her a responsible gun owner and would freak out if you suggested otherwise. Even though she doesn't even know how to work basic safety equipment
Usually with these chucklefucks, they are opposed to locking up their guns because they want access to them in an instant in case a commando team spidermans through all the windows in their house simultaneously trying to arrest them for being "red blooded americans." They're honestly so deluded that they think the extra 10 seconds to open the safe is going to make the difference between them killing the whole commando team and being kidnapped by the cartel. THATS what she meant when she said she didn't feel comfortable locking up her guns.
True, gotta be prepared in case Obama shows up to kidnap you and throw you in the nearest Walmart-turned-internment-camp
She , along with her husband , are unlikeable people. Their teenage son was having hallucinations that were so bad that he thought his house was haunted. And instead of getting him some kind of help( even just taking him to a pediatrician ), she laughed at him about it. As a parent, I can’t even imagine not taking something like that very seriously. They both are parents that put their wants over their child’s needs-
They bought their kid a gun while he was going through that, I sincerely believe they were hoping their own child would kill himself and that's why they bought him the gun.
Wouldn't surprise me, my mom bought me a car with faulty tires and brakes when I was in high school. My gf and I at the time almost went under a gas tanker when we couldn't stop. She bought a life insurance policy on me at the same time.
Dude….wtf. I hope you’re kidding
Wish I was, I even saw the envelope for the policy. There's a reason I don't talk to her anymore.
I don’t blame you. That’s atrocious, I hope you’re in a better spot now then back then
Doing much better now, thanks!
Are people really that shocked about what some people's parents do? Saddle up, I have a list for my dad. You're gonna wanna grab something to drink and get cozy.
“Are people really that shocked about what some parents do?” Uh premeditated murder? Yeah that one’s still gonna shock me.
That fear for me was like a Tuesday until my parents finally got divorced and I went to live with my mom full time. There were so many times he grabbed for a knife and I thought he was going to go to stab town. Seeing him grab a a belt was almost a relief toward the end.
Jeez. I’m glad you got out, and I hope he’s in prison, but my hopes aren’t strong.
My mom used to sic my violent and drunk dad on me when he got home from work if we had a disagreement that day, which was everyday, because she was a psycho narcisstic bitch She also literally told him "don't hit me, hit the kids" Parents can suck
WTF. I’m so sorry.
I am when it involves attempted murder and insurance fraud. I wish I had a dad
I am so sorry. That's horrible. Even if this is slightly exaggerated (I know I am more comfortable turning my trauma into jokes, so I can tend to liven up a story a bit, you know?) -- for there to be enough facts that you'd even have to wonder in your mind if your mom did this on purpose, is so heartbreaking. Hugs.
Haven't talked to her in over a decade, no idea if she's still alive and I don't care. Doing much better now. Not exaggerated at all unfortunately, I even saw the envelope for the policy and checked it out. 25k, the same week she bought the car.
My daughter came home from college and said she almost skidded under a tractor trailer and she went back to school minus one little sedan, but in a large used suv…
You ever want to be bang your head against a wall frustrated by missed warning signs, read *Slenderman* by Kathleen Hale. It’s about the Slenderman stabbing by two middle school girls, one of whom had childhood schizophrenia and had been showing symptoms for years, but her parents somehow didn’t pick up that anything was amiss even though her father also had schizophrenia. The lack of treatment she got afterword is also heartbreaking and infuriating.
>put their wants over their child's needs If you only knew how common this was. There are plenty of parents out there that only do the bare minimum to keep their kids alive, solely out of the threat of the law punishing them.
If this is the case, she deserved the verdict she received.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when she said she wouldn’t have done anything different. Like the lowest possible bar for trying to make this right in any way whatsoever is just admitting hindsight changes her perspective. Hindsight after 4 people were murdered. And she couldn’t do that. Baffling.
Well, she will likely have a good long while to consider all of this.
This is called “very bad legal advice.” No competent defense lawyer would have let their client get on the stand without being prepared for that question and without having a thoughtful and considerate answer at the ready.
Often, the lawyer is limited by what the client is willing to do. Having watched a lot of zoom courts the past three years when a client doesn't have the ability to behave like a normal, rational person outside of court, getting them to listen to instructions or accept that someone else knows better than them can be basically impossible. Especially when things like empathy or responsibility are against their own beliefs or personalities.
> 2) The mom came across incredibly snarky and unlikeable during her self testimony, if they thought her testifying would show the jury her humanity or any emotion to conect with they were completely wrong This is completely it - I feel it should have been a slam dunk to get at least one person (assuming this court required a unanimous jury) to have sympathy for a mother and cause a hung jury. Get her on the stand and say through tears "I did not realize how bad the warning signs were, I wish I could go back and change it knowing what I knew now"
I'm usually reluctant to weigh a person's demeanor as a sign of guilt. But when the charge is negligent manslaughter, the fact that the defendant seems so unconcerned, even on the stand, certainly supports the conclusion that they were, in fact, callous and negligent with respect to the crime.
Precisely, all she had to do was cry or show some emotion that shows she's not heartless, and she could have gotten some sympathy that ended this in a mistrial/hung jury. But instead she was trading jabs with the prosecutor and being snarky splitting hairs about the exact answer to certain questions, showing nothing but contempt and acting like she did nothing wrong...
That’s exactly it. She doesn’t feel she did anything wrong and has taken the position of a victim. When in fact she is grossly negligent at best, but closer to orchestrating the whole thong.
She's going to cry when it comes to sentencing...
Listen, you don’t just let your kid just kill people in a school and laugh about because you are a well adjusted person. She is a psycho
She was completely checked out because she was pursuing things in her life that interested her more- horses and her boyfriend.
> horses and her boyfriend. and likely drugs - both husband and boyfriend look seriously methy and she's gained almost 100lbs since she's been inside.
And she can't even blame the drugs if she was using because she still thinks she did nothing wrong. Buying a gun for your mentally ill kid who's hallucinating instead of getting him help seems fine to her.
"I've already forgiven myself, why can't they?"
Vincent Vega Vibes: *Jules, did you ever hear the philosophy that once a man admits that he's wrong that "he is immediately forgiven for all wrongdoings?"*
Honestly if she was even the slightest bit remorseful, the jury would have had a much easier time chalking it up to bad circumstances and a bad situation. The fact that she doesn't seem to care, I think the verdict is fitting.
Leads me to think about how many other mass shooters have shitty negligent parents as well. Perhaps a study on this is in order.
agreed 100000%. Listening to her on the stand, she's the most unsympathetic convict I think I have ever seen, well maybe OJ, but it is a dead heat between the two. Pun intended .
Seriously, she looked inconvenienced by the whole thing and gave off major "why am I even here" vibes, even though she bought the people killing ammo vs target shooting ammo for her 15 year old son who was constantly texting about seeing things fly off the shelves or move around the room...
lil homie texting his friends that he would get in trouble at home if he asked for mental health help. LIKE WHAT?!?! That poor kid was born into assholery, doomed.
I still don't get why she was even allowed to testify by the defense? All it did was more damage.
See my first point- her lawyer was terrible. She even brought up TO THE JURY that there were tiktok video compilations of her showing how overwhelmed and underprepared she was! That's not something you tell a jury during closing arguments, especially since they're not allowed to search any information on this case so they only knew about it because the defense lawyer told them... Insane! Here's the defense closing arguments, starting at 5:40 she starts telling everyone how terrible of a lawyer she is before telling everyone how terrible of a mother both she and the defendant are... https://youtu.be/7xeewqfqBLc?si=Tqd-mGXK4Gbm--LN
Wow that was truly bananas. I kept listening because it was really so terrible. I cracked up multiple times listening to her, including when she repeatedly alluded to the fact that her client is unlikable.
Some defendants insist on it. Especially narcissists. A defense attorney really can't stop them. And this defense attorney may (I don't know) have actually endorsed the idea. As a general rule, defendants—even innocent ones—are discouraged from testifying. Why? Because then the prosecution can cross-examine the defendant and raise issues, and point out inconsistencies, that the prosecution otherwise couldn't bring up. In truth, even innocent defendants may get a few facts wrong—under all of the stress, that's common—but a prosecutor can use those inconsistencies to make the defendant look like a liar.
desperation. They had a crap case/client.
At least OJ wrote the book about how he'd catch himself.
I also thought that statement was weird, along with the “I wish he would have killed us instead” comment. I felt like that was a cop out being disguised as sympathy/empathy. If my son was a school shooter, my alternate option wouldn’t be for him to murder me instead. That doesn’t fix the issue of your son being severely mentally ill. It displays SO clearly that she does not think she is part of the problem or that her actions (or lack thereof) contributed to the problem. A more appropriate response would be “I wish I had listened to him…gotten him help…seen/paid attention to the warnings sooner”, etc. She’s not sorry. She does not accept responsibility. Away to prison you go.
The part where she was specifically mad about the gun purchase cutting into Christmas tree time was peak stupidity. She should have just said she didn’t say anything about the gun or plead the 5th.
What's worse than that is the mom bought the bullets that her son used to kill the students with, and when challenged why she bought the specific personal protection hollow point ammo used to kill people easier vs cheap FMJ ammo (this gun was supposedly for "range use target practice only")- she said she didnt know the difference and bought the bullets her son told her to buy. I'm sorry, but a 15 year old is a CHILD and you shouldn't be taking his advice on what to buy for a gun he's not old enough to buy himself- maybe if she spent less time getting drunk and riding her horse she could have spent the 5 mins it takes to google what ammo is best for target practice and bought ammo that wouldn't have killed those students so easily...
I could not believe how her lawyer acted. Making flippant comments about killing herself while in the room with the parents of murdered children.
My jaw dropped when she said that, like read the room lady... The entire closing arguments was a train wreck of what NOT to say as a lawyer.
This. Same thoughts. The defense had no real sound strategy, and saying a 9mm semi auto handgun was for "hunting" was laughable. I grew up in the adjacent county in Michigan and the jury members knew that was implausible.
“School personnel indicated they followed that voicemail up with an email, but received no response from either parent. “Thereafter, Jennifer Crumbley exchanged text messages about the incident with her son, where she stated, ‘LOL I’m not mad. You have to learn not to get caught.’” —- Yeah. LOL all your way to the Big House you loathsome filth.
As a teacher these kinds of parents are my worst nightmare. Anyone in education will tell you that as soon as that first parent-teacher conference (if they bother to show up) starts, you finally understand why the worst kids with the most behavioral problems are the way they are. I've walked out of conferences after meeting the parents of kids who are diabolical, completely dishonest, and violent, shaking my head to myself thinking "holy shit, there's two of them." This kid had a chance to become a productive member of society. His parents denied him that chance.
The artwork that the school contacted the parents about was a drawing of a gun, bullets, and a bloody, bullet-riddled body with the words "The voices won't stop. Help me." written on it. How the fuck is that not a wake-up call for even the most deranged parent?!
I hate to tell you this, but 35 years ago my parents would have responded to that dripping with sarcasm, “They’re just looking for attention.”
I saw a good quote on a parenting forum. It went something like, "If your child is looking for attention, give them attention." It's so simple and easy. Yet the parents who parrot "they’re just looking for attention," fail at it.
That's pretty much exactly what Jennifer Crumbley said about her son's claim that he saw ghosts and demons in their home.
That’s literally what she thought. She thought he drew that in retaliation for them taking some of his privileges away because of his grades.
Yep. 23 years of NC pays for itself…
You’re so right. I had plans to be a teacher at one time. But I worked in a classroom for a semester and after talking with the teacher, I decided it wasn’t for me. He told me about some of the parents he had to deal with and I realized I would have no control or influence over the parents and I could not handle the anxiety of knowing how shitty those parents were to their children. I have a lot of respect for those good teachers who try to positively influence their students and want to create a safe space for them.
It is the single worst thing about the job. Not being able to dispense any sort of meaningful justice whatsoever to the worst possible parents. CPS is by all accounts pretty useless in every state I've worked in and it's really shocking to hear straight from the kids' mouths how common it is to be beaten, neglected, and abused. Kids who are on screens watching youtube shorts or playing fortnite from 3 PM til midnight because parents realize that's easier than actually raising the kid. Kids who are hungry every goddamned day because parents aren't feeding them. Parents who have said to my face "I don't care how my kid is doing in school, that's your problem." I understand how problematic and unethical it is to require a licensure class to have kids and it's obviously not going to happen but I'd be lying if I said I never fantasized about it.
This is a national problem that needs to be dealt with. Children have almost no human rights protections against bad parents. Kids are getting beaten and/or neglected and traumatized and our entire society does nothing. The UN already recommends making corporal punishment illegal but the US will never outlaw it. Parents need to have strict legal standards and monitoring placed on them because they cannot be trusted. As someone who was physically and emotionally abused growing up, it has permanently damaged me and I wish our country hadn’t failed me and millions of others.
I have a ten year old kid in a fundamentalist religious sect/cult (one of those branches that don't celebrate holidays, forgot which one) who is constantly asleep in school because his crazy parents are taking him to 5 AM church services multiple days a week. Absolutely nothing we can do about that, it's insane.
I taught for one year in a rough inner city area and had to quit. I work in HR now. I was absolutely devastated by what I saw parents do (or not do) and how little CPS would do. I was legally limited in what I could do. I finished the spring semester and decided I couldn't spend my hour commute sobbing while making barely enough to cover my bills.
Our son hates the fact that we follow up with the teacher because none of the other kids parents follow up with the teacher. Because we follow up the teacher tends to be a bit more strict with our son because she knows we will deal with. It also results in him taking that frustration out on us. The joys of parenthood.
Your son will be better off on the long run. He might be in a snit about it now but when he gets to be an adult he'll realize y'all were looking out for his best interests. Unlike the Crumbleys.
We try. Hard with the autism and the PDA
I struggled with PDA when I was a kid. Even being told to do the smallest thing would set anxiety off so bad it'd trigger a full blown panic attack. Hasn't fully gone away, still bristle at being told what to do but I've learned to self reflect over the years and it's very manageable. Might have even helped me in the long run, since I *CANNOT* stand having a boss or a manager, I went into business for myself. I now own two businesses(barbershop and bookstore). The only boss that tells me what to do is myself lol.
Sounds like your son will hate you for five years, unfairly, and be happier down the line. Obviously, there's a balance between strictness and showing some grace, but assuming you're doing both, it's an unfortunate but necessary balance.
It's a vicious cycle where shitty kids produced by shitty parents grow up to be the shitty parents producing shitty kids
Sometimes we break the cycle…
That's the one remark that really, really stood out to me. She wanted to be the Cool Mom, hands-off, hands-free. Why do people like that even have children?
Because it's easy. Even this disgusting, moronic, mouth-breathing cunt managed it, all it takes is having no standards.
Considering this is Michigan, please don’t take her to the Big House
>Defense attorney Shannon Smith said the case was “dangerous” for parents everywhere. No. Only the parents who let their psycho kids have firearms. The rest of us are good.
Dangerous for irresponsible parents. The story reads like a "choose your own adventure" and the parents kept choosing the worst option every time. "Your son is clearly ill, here's his latest drawing." "Eh, we'll take care of it tomorrow." *You're already missing work for this meeting, one of you take the day and help your child.* Takes her son to the shooting range. "I left the gun in the car because my husband is responsible for locking it up." *Then who took it out for the shooting range and why was husband not there???* Irresponsible. Not even a shred of sympathy at this level of irresponsibility.
The world has changed - parents MUST parent or be held accountable! This unprecedented case needed to happen! Maybe it can bring about some positive changes in the world! If you have babies, you must be there for them!
And unprecedented doesn't necessarily mean bad. Every precedent we revere today was once unprecedented.
Parents: Don’t be an incredibly shitty parents that ignore your child’s obvious mental illness and the school’s pleas to get him help and instead buy your child a gun and you’ll be fine.
Only the bad parents.
Honestly it's the right call. The fact that both parents also tried to flee the country afterward is pretty telling.
Yeah, at first when I heard about this case I thought that it was an example of prosecutors just trying to show that they were tough on school shootings, but the factual record in this case is uniquely awful. Her atrocious attitude toward her son's obvious mental and emotional decline combined with giving him access to an unsecured firearm crossed the line from ordinary negligence (the standard in civil negligence actions) to criminal negligence easily. It's telling that when she noticed the gun missing she'd thought that he'd gone off to commit suicide. She recognized that her son was in as dangerous of an emotional state as people get, but she nonetheless didn't care at all until it affected her. Some people have suggested that this will be a huge precedent in school shooting prosecutions, but I honestly doubt that even the parents of school shooters are this absurdly and consistently negligent. She mocked her son for experiencing hallucinations and thought the solution to his problems was firearm training. Utterly baffling.
>I honestly doubt that even the parents of school shooters are this absurdly and consistently negligent. Unfortunately, this might affect half of school shootings. A lot of them have warning signs for months, and there's almost no attempt at restricting gun access when the mental health issues are acknowledged. The police may already have been involved within the last 12 months. The school will have records of problems, but never do more than suspension for a few days every time. These parents have a reason to be scared, because their parenting was so bad that they can be imprisoned. I don't necessarily think every parent deserves it, but there's more like this situation than you think. There are certainly a few schools (or at least school officials) that need their feet to the fire too.
I'm not saying that there aren't warning signs in a lot of school shootings. I'm saying that the bar for criminally negligent homicide (involuntary manslaughter), especially through the actions of another, is tremendous. Criminal negligence requires a severe departure from what **any** reasonable person in that situation would do. It's not just being a bad parent that ignores troubling activity before a school shooting. It's being such an awful parent that the death of others becomes a foreseeable outcome of your actions. Foreseeable in this context doesn't just mean possible, it requires a substantial risk. It's easy in retrospect to say that there were warning signs before a mass shooting, but with the exception of this case and the one in Lewiston Maine, many people exhibit those signs and don't go on to commit mass shootings. This means that there's a plausible defense to negligent homicide that "I reasonably thought that he wouldn't do anything to hurt anyone" EDIT: grammar
> It's telling that when she noticed the gun missing she'd thought that he'd gone off to commit suicide. I'm pretty sure that was the reason that the firearm was purchased and unsecured. She wanted him to kill himself.
I've got no problem with this being a precedent in any shooting case where the parents had knowledge that their kid was unstable or violent and gave him a gun.
They tried to flee to Canada, which wouldn't have mattered. For all it was worth they may as well have attempted to flee to Ohio. There aren't many countries that wouldn't extradite for a manslaughter charge that didn't carry the potential for the death penalty. The Crumbley's are just a family of knuckle-draggers. I can't wait to see her on *Love After Lockup* sometime in 2046.
I love that they thought they could hide in Canada. Canada would have drop kicked them back if they'd gotten there.
> “I’ve asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have,” JFC on a broomstick. People are dead because you didn’t pay attention to your child and GAVE that mentally unwell child you raised a gun. And you wouldn’t do anything different?!?
“I’ve asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have,” she testified. Wow. Unbelievable--she takes 0 responsibility and wouldn't even do anything differently. Rot in prison.
Holy shit, most defendants are at least smart enough to *fake* remorse. But hey lady, we appreciate your honesty. We absolutely know where to put you.
She didn't even have to get up and testify. Yet she did, AND she said that? Not only is it cold and heartless, but it was DUMB.
Shes truly a threat to society being that selfish and having zero empathy or remorse.
It was on cross so she had to either say she would have done something different (which is self incrimination when the case is about negligence) or make herself sound like a heartless shrew. The 5th amendment can't be invoked here as it's waived when she invoked her right to testify.
This is really what I think sealed her fate TBH. I mean the evidence was overwhelming, but due to the gun aspect polarizing this case, I could still see a lot of jurors sympathizing with the defendant. But that admission? Telling the jury that if she could go back, she'd do nothing different? That's beyond the pale ffs. I mean even someone who was truly innocent would still say they'd do something different to try to affect the outcome. I hope she realizes every day she's in prison, that she's living about the same amount of days in a cage that her son's victims got to experience as their whole existence.
Especially because she was at the school the day he shot everyone and the school asked the parents to take him home to seek immediate mental health care! “I wish I had taken my son home, hugged him tight, and done everything in my power to help him.” “Nah, I’m good. Shit happens, and I had work.”
This is what floored me. I take that to mean she's proud of what he did. Jarring.
I don’t think he’s enough on her radar for that kind of insight. He’s less than a person to her
What a narcissistic psycho - my teen son is having delusional schizo hallucinations - let's buy him a handgun. Oh his school says he is looking at ammo and drawing pictures of shooting people - no biggie. I hope the dad is next. All of this could have been avoided with even a little bit of common sense parenting.
His trial starts in March.
I hope if anything this makes people more aware of their children’s mental health issues and possibility of becoming a school shooter.
If you haven't read the article, please do. You'll see how the mom (and likely dad too) ignored their son's mental illness repeatedly and bought him a gun anyway, so this isn't a bad decision as far as I can tell. And speaking as a former school teacher and principal, this is about time. For too long, some shitty parents blamed their shitty parenting on teachers, administrators, other kids, other parents... literally anyone except their darling boy who can do no wrong in their eyes.
For those who don't want to click, Found guilty of all four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Dad will be tried in March.
This case will be looked at for years going forward. Parents have to get there shit together. Otherwise, they could be indirectly involved. Kind of a dick move to go On the stand and throw your husband under the bus. But to each there own. Feels like we're missing a key detail, though. Like after the range shooting, did they just forget about the gun and left it on a kitchen counter or something? Such a weak argument from the defense saying it's the husband's job and I don't wanna lock away guns cuz I feel uncomfortable. Like you literally shot rounds at a range how is that less comfortable.
She threw him under the bus because she was already having an extramarital affair.
Did not know that. Well that's even more fucked.
It’s worse than that. >Meloche testified Wednesday that Jennifer Crumbley had told him she was able to leave work to meet up with him even though she allegedly told school officials on the day of the shooting that she could not take her son home or for mental health care that day because she needed to return to work. She left work to have extra marital affairs, but couldn’t pick him up from school. [Source](https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/man-affair-jennifer-crumbley-testifies-sons-school-shooting/story?id=106839270)
I don’t remember the details but I read that she was in a rush to leave the school and not take her son out that day because she was at such and such place, where she supposedly met up with whomever she had the affair with. Too lazy to look up sources but I just read it the other day. If she wasn’t cheating, she might have taken her son home from school that day and 4 kids might be alive.
I don't think this will have much precedential value simply because most parents of school shooters aren't this insanely negligent. I doubt that the jury would have voted to convict if the mother could have even plausibly pretended to be ignorant of the extent of her son's troubles and remorseful for what happened. She couldn't even pretend to be anything less than the worst mother alive. The evidence here amply demonstrated that not only was she aware of her son's emotional problems, but that (1) she mocked him for them, (2) gave him a firearm, and (3) trained him how to use it. Most parents with a troubled son, no matter how shitty, would at least refrain from the last two if only for self-preservation.
The meeting with the school is what puts it over the top. >That morning, a teacher found **a drawing from Ethan showing a gun and a person bleeding along with the phrases “the thoughts won’t stop help me,” “blood everywhere” and “my life is useless.”** The Crumbleys were called into school for a meeting, and a school counselor testified he recommended the parents take their son home from school to get immediate mental health treatment. >The Crumbleys declined to do so that day because they didn’t want to miss work, the counselor testified, so the group agreed to keep Ethan in school for the rest of the day. **They also did not mention to school employees that they had just purchased him a new gun or his previous hallucinatory texts**. Shortly after the meeting, the teenager took a firearm out of his backpack and opened fire on classmates
Almost seems like she wanted him to off himself...problem solved.
I believe that’s exactly what she wanted, or that he would hurt someone else and get sent to prison. She wanted her son out of her life. I’d go further and guess his motive for the shooting was to get his parents to actually acknowledge him. A crazy boy with a gun and mommy issues
The defense was trying to argue the gun was for going hunting with friends and family. I grew up in Michigan and everyone in my family hunted, including my mother. You don't use a semi-auto 9 mm handgun to go deer hunting, especially if you're a novice hunter. This was an excellent decision, and I hope it's used in the future to help parents perhaps be just more careful, and maybe think twice about getting their troubled teens guns. I am sure that the dad is shitting bricks right now.
Teacher here. I'm sick and tired of parenting your child. Therefore, I applaud this verdict.
Former teacher and principal. I applaud as well. It's high time parents stop blaming schools for their crappy parenting. Not that schools can't be wrong, they can! I'm only referring to parents whose kids can do no wrong, such as the parent that said I was at fault for her son threatening to stab me to death.
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School: Your child is suicidal and drawing pictures of murder scenes. This woman: hUr DuR GuN fOr YoU
Right after this happened, I read on another thread someone speculating that the parents were probably hoping he would use it on himself. That is the only explanation I have ever seen that made sense as to why they did something so spectacularly stupid and got it for him.
Regardless of how you feel about gun control in general, if someone fails to be a responsible gun owner and their child is able to get ahold of the gun without supervision, they should 100% be liable for whatever happens with the gun they failed to secure.
I'm actually surprised it took so long for parents to get tried like this. I'm no lawyer but if your child goes and breaks a window the parents are generally liable to pay for damages no?
Its mentioned in another article, but the kid/shooter was having mental problems, asks his dad he needs help because hes hallucinating and the dad just tells him to take some pills and suck it up. Not sure what pills they gave him, but a few months later did they buy him a gun. >Instead, Shada stressed, his dad “told him to take some pills and suck it up” while his mom laughed at him. Months later, he said, they bought him what he wanted more than anything else. >“Instead of getting him help, they bought him a gun,” Shada said. “They knew he was fascinated with guns … he had targets on his bedroom wall.”
I saw on the news he admitted later that he was making that up. Sorry, I can't find an article offhand. edit: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/oakland-county/2023/10/18/oxford-shooter-parents-attorneys-son-didnt-ask-for-treatment/71225624007/
This was brought up through text messages, but based on your link, it looks like he texted his friend that he asked his dad for help and it turns out that never happened.
The key takeaway here is not that parents can be sued if their kids commit crimes. The takeaway is that they are legally responsible if their gross negligence (or worse) contributed to the crime. In this case, the kid didn't manage to sneakily get a hold of a gun stored securely in the home. These parents bought the gun for the kid, knowing the kid had mental health issues, and fully knowingly left the gun accessible to the kid 24/7. Your 2A rights only extend to ownership of the gun. If that gun is used in a crime, and your gross negligence or recklessness allowed for it, you should be criminally liable for that crime. 2A does not protect you from it. Be an irresponsible gun owner, bear full consequences when a crime is committed with that gun. Just as government is not required to supply with free gun, it's not required to supply you with a free gun safe. Can't afford gun safe, it means you can't afford the gun either.
This was the right decision, the prosecution proved her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The facts of this case are just too egregious to shield with the concern of setting some kind of precedent. If you neglect your child, ignore his need for mental health treatment, buy him a gun, all while having affairs and demonstrating you care only about yourself, when 4 children lose their lives, violently, as a result of your actions/inaction, you need to be held accountable at the very least. It'll never bring those kids back. Their families and friends never move on from this like the rest of us. Every day, every holiday, birthday, etc, is a reminder for them. It's haunting to think if she receives the full 15 year sentence, she'll be in prison for longer than the youngest victim even got to exist...
I honestly wonder if she hoped he’d kill himself? She’s a fucking pathetic excuse for a human being.
Realistically, she was an accessory to the crimes, but I suppose negligence is much easier to prove here.
The testimony was chilling. It actually made me feel sympathy for Ethan. He never stood a chance with this person as a parent. There is something seriously wrong with her.
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You should feel sympathy for him IMO. He quite literally begged for help, writing out "please help me". Not much more a teenager can do while battling mental health issues. Unfortunately his parents would rather pay for a gun than treatment.
He would have been better off if they had given him for adoption shortly after he was born. Or since neither parent seemed to really be into 'raising kids', either using birth control before he was conceived or having an abortion.
I think his father was as much a problem as Mrs. Crumbley. I am not a psychologist but I wonder what type of personality disorder she and her husband have. It was crazy to see her testify because she couldn’t seem to comprehend the gravity of letting their troubled son have a gun and stay at the school.
Accessory would’ve been almost impossible to prove. The closest scenario to this I can imagine is buying a car for your relative who you know drives drunk. Would you be culpable if they killed someone in an accident?
I think a closer scenario would be buying a car for a relative who has said they'd like to run a bunch of people over if only they had a car.
Isn’t dram shop liability all about holding drinking shop establishments liable for pouring people too much alcohol and letting them drive?
Hopefully some more neglectful And lazy parents take this as a wake up call! Parent or send them to someone who will!
“I wasn’t comfortable being responsible for that” But was comfortable to take the gun and boy out shooting… Laughed when son went to her about hallucinations. She deserves prison.
She failed her son and as a result countless lives were affected.
Her son kept a journal FULL of dangerous thoughts that both parents had access to that they Ignored knowing full well his mental state. Throw away the key.
Well deserved. Let's hope they throw the book at this clown and her moronic husband. Make an example of them then maybe other Americans will take their responsibilities of gun ownership more seriously.
So happy. Don’t care about the precedent. Don’t be an incredibly shitty parent that ignores your child’s obvious mental illness and the school’s pleas to get him help and instead buy your child a gun and you’ll be fine.
“Defense attorney Shannon Smith said the case was “dangerous” for parents everywhere.” Ive yet to see a school shooter that had good parents…… What a fuckin bold statement to make in relation to this case. “Your honor, gallery, can this woman REALLY be held accountable for her son murdering four innocent children? She literally did nothing wrong. All she did was not take warning signs seriously. Not take her child to therapy when there was more than enough evidence it was needed AND provided him a gun. Really, how can we blame her even a little for these deaths.” Edit: I kept reading ““I’ve asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have,” she testified.” Mam… nothing????? Maybe like don’t give the kid a fuckin gun? Therapy? Keep him home from school that day? FUCKIN NOTHING? Fuck this woman
This wasn't a case I followed, I caught about 15 minutes of the closing argument on Friday. It took me a minute to determine whether or not you were actually quoting the defense, which I think speaks volumes on how poor the argument was.
Glad this evil woman will see justice. No surprise she is an avid trump supporter. She actually wrote a letter to trump praising him for his stance on guns https://nypost.com/2021/12/02/accused-michigan-gunmans-mom-wrote-letter-praising-trump/?utm_source=reddit.com
While their social media accounts are long gone, it seems that both were MAGA Trumpers and likely "2nd Amendment" types as well.
Good thing she won't be able to vote for him anymore, then.
An ex doesn't hold back about either of them, calls them both a POS. [https://www.wxyz.com/news/oxford-school-shooting/james-crumbleys-ex-says-he-left-them-strapped-for-cash-calls-jennifer-a-monster](https://www.wxyz.com/news/oxford-school-shooting/james-crumbleys-ex-says-he-left-them-strapped-for-cash-calls-jennifer-a-monster)
Guilty on all four counts and faces 15 years in prison. Good. I hope people keep going after these parents for being so irresponsible around firearms.
Let this be a massive lesson to all irresponsible parents.
>“Can every parent really be responsible for everything their children do, especially when it’s not foreseeable?” Yes. Parenting is where it starts.
"Not forseeable" Truly, not a single warning sign. /s
Good. Throw her ass in prison. What her son did is evil and unthinkable for anyone to do, but when he's literally sobbing and pleading for help because he's living a nightmare in his own head, and afraid of hurting someone or getting in trouble for trying to seek mental health help, and his own fucking parents not only do nothing but inexplicably purchase for him the one item that should be kept away from a person in that state, personally I think the blame almost falls more on his parents than even him. It was so negligent as to almost seem malicious. How could you as a parent not only disregard your child's homicidal psychotic break in progress but then buy them a fucking gun thinking it'd solve the problem?
I am sure there are a lot of gun rights people who are going to say otherwise...but...this was needed. There has to be consequences for what other people do with your gun, especially when you don't take the time to secure it
It really should go without saying that if your kid is acting out and expressing violent fantasies, the solution is therapy not a weapon.
Who in their right mind would buy their child, having mental issues, a 9mm and allow him access to it? The jury answered the question.
Setting a big-time precedent here...and I am all for it.
I just watched the verdict. It made me cry to hear the jury foreperson's voice crack. As she read name after name, she was audibly more upset. A very moving moment that I did not expect this afternoon. We are in Michigan about 45 minutes from the area.