In the USA, for the first time, the parents of a teenager who staged a mass shooting were convicted

Jennifer and James Crumbley in court

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

In the USA, the parents of a teenager who staged a mass shooting at a school and killed four students were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison.

They became the first parents to be prosecuted for their child’s shooting, reports CNN and BBC.

On November 30, 2021, then 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley opened fire at a high school in Oxford, Michigan. During the shooting, he killed four students and injured seven more people – six students and a teacher.

In 2023, Ethan was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The boy’s parents jennifer and James Crumbley, were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in February and March 2024, respectively.

The couple will be eligible for parole after they serve 10 years in prison. If they are denied this, a man and a woman can spend more than 15 years in custody.

According to prosecutors, the couple dismissed signs that their son’s mental health had deteriorated – Ethan complained of hallucinations. Despite this, for Christmas they gave their son the gun that the teenager used in his attack.

“These convictions show repeated acts or omissions that could have stopped an oncoming train, repeated disregards of things that would make a reasonable person’s hair stand on end.

Opportunity knocked again and again, louder and louder, but it was ignored. Nobody answered. These two people should have responded, but they didn’t.” Oakland County District Court Judge Cheryl Matthews emphasized.

Both parents expressed regret at their son’s actions during the hearing.

“I will be in my own inner prison for the rest of my life” said Jennifer Crumbley.

“I can’t express how much I wish I knew what was happening or could happen to Ethan. Then I absolutely would have done a lot of things differently.” – said James Crumbley.

They have now been in jail for more than two years, since their arrest at a Detroit warehouse days after the shooting.

The lawyers asked to sentence their clients to less than five years in prison each. However, prosecutors demanded a greater punishment. In particular, the prosecution noted that James Crumbley threatened prosecutor Karen Macdonald with “retaliation.” However, the defense denied this.

In this case, prosecutors used a new legal theory, charging the parents with involuntary manslaughter. Thus, they have expanded the limits of responsibility for mass shootings.

We will remind, in the USA there is a 67-year-old former professor opened fire on the University of Nevada campus, killing three people.