to think this isn't right? mother convicted if manslaughter

[greenacrylicpaint]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68223118

A jury has found a Michigan mother guilty of involuntary manslaughter for failing to stop her son from carrying out a deadly school shooting.

by all means, she didn't come across as mother of the year, but come on.
what sentence will the father get?
an absent father in a similar case?

oh america

I think the fact that they looked at his drawing of a gun and didn't say, "Actually we gave him that gun yesterday - he has one," should certainly implicate them in some way.

What difference does it make that she didn’t physically purchase the gun?

The facts are they put the gun in his hands.

Had he have not had access to a gun, he wouldn’t have had it with him and done it. Having the gun gave him the option of shooting people at school. He had the gun a matter of days. Within days of having it, he used it.

Theres no evidence to suggest he was trying to get a gun, off his own back. Or even had the ability to. He could not legally own one and may not have had the connections or ability to illegally procure one.

Had he have stolen a knife from their kitchen and they didn’t know, they likely wouldn’t have been looking at charges. Or at least lesser ones. possibly child neglect charges.

Had he stole a knife and they knew and chose not to inform the school even though he drew photos of a school stabbing, they would be facing charges relating to that. There’s absolutely no reason this boy needed access to a gun.

If you can’t see the difference in parental responsibility between parents giving their child a gun and a child stealing a knife, there’s an issue.

Plus the whole ‘what’s the issue with guns. The Uk have stabbings’ is a weird comparison. How many stabbings in schools have we had where multiple people are dead and more injured?

How many stabbings in the Uk per capita compared with shootings and stabbings per capita in the US?

I agree with this. I live in the US and these shootings happen so often it's horrific. I live in a city where a congress woman was shot along with others who were killed including a little girl. Anything that can be done to stop this needs to happen. If it's jailing parents so be it

🤦🏻‍♀️

anything except gun control?

they could have stopped this years ago. They uk did after Dunblane. That was our first and last school shooting.

just stop guns being so freely available.

A lot, in law. It changes the charge entirely.

"Ethan Crumbley had wanted mental health help and complained of hallucinations, but said his parents did not get him treatment. Ms Crumbley said on the stand that she did not think her son had mental health problems.
On the morning of the shooting, the parents cut short a school meeting about a disturbing drawing their son had made to go to work and declined to take the then 15-year-old home."

Not to mention that they thought this was a good time to buy him a gun. The father requested a separate trial.

It's a state-by-state issue. Gun purchases are governed by state law in general. Some states have waiting periods, checks for mental health issues, etc, and some don't. In general, the more Republican the state, the more lax the gun laws.

I don’t mean to be a dick but HOW just how can you be pro gun?!?

Yes gun control would be great. Unfortunately every one who is for gun control keeps being out voted. It's terrible but unless people vote in gun control we pay the price. But even with gun control that won't stop people who's parents are supplying guns or see that some serious is going on and do nothing

@IsthisthereallifeIsthisjustfantasy Guns don’t kill people; other people kill people. His parents should never have bought him a gun, and should have addressed his mental health issues promptly. He needed to learn the difference between right and wrong. That’s the most important thing.

I wondered when that thought-terminating cliche would rear its ugly head.
**
In the immortal words of Eddie Izzard: “I think the gun helps.”

nonesense
if gun are not easily available they don't get used to kill as many many people as they currently do in the us and other countries.

America does have too many guns. If there were fewer guns, school shootings wouldn’t happen. Still, young people need better parenting so they won’t consider killing others. Too many parents outsource bringing up their children to screens.

Others awere afraid to say no to their children. Gentle parenting only works well for a minority of children.

It absolutely was right.

I watched the trial.

they bought him a gun, knowing he had mental health issues, he drew pictures od himself holding the gun surrounded by dead bodies and blood, the school found them, called the mum in, she didn’t check his bag to see if the gun was in there, it was, and he killed 4 people.

It seems harsh but something needed to happen to the parents surely. This went above parents who genuinely had their child's best interests at heart. They were willing to ignore (or at best, minimise) pretty glaring concerns. They decided having a gun at home wasn't worth mentioning to the school despite him drawing it on the schoolwork which the school had called them in about.
It was reasonable to assume they knew that something wasn't right and he had access to a gun which they as adults did not store securely.

"A day before the shooting, the school informed Jennifer Crumbley that Ethan, who was 15, was looking at ammunition on his phone. “I’m not mad,” she texted him. “You have to learn not to get caught.”"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/23/michigan-school-shooter-mother-on-trial-manslaughter

"“He literally drew a picture of what he was going to do. It says, ‘Help me,’” the prosecutor Karen McDonald told the court during closing arguments on Friday, alleging that his mother knew that the gun in the boy’s drawing was identical to the new one at home.

"“She knew it wasn’t stored properly,” McDonald added. “She knew that he was proficient with the gun. She knew he had access to ammunition"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/06/michigan-school-shooter-mother-guilty-jennifer-crumbley

@Ericaequites People with guns kill people. Hence why far, far fewer people are murdered in countries without guns or with much stricter gun restrictions. Sounds like you are one of the people with blood on your hands.

I don’t even on a gun. My father kept one in a closet, but it was unthinkable that I would have touched it, let alone brought it to school.

I wonder what would have happened if he was 16 or 18. Same mental health problems, same disturbed thoughts, same drawings and same cries for help . If his parents had bought him the gun, would they no longer be liable because he was an adult?

Where did all the other people who have been involved in school shootings get their guns ? Were any of them bought them by their parents, legally or illegally ?

Is this the first case where the parents of a school shooter have stood trial ?

I think that the facts of this case clearly met the standard for law on involuntary manslaughter. In fact, if you were looking to explain the law on involuntary manslaughter to someone, you might might make up a case just like this to serve as the perfect example.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/jennifer-crumbley-involuntary-manslaughter-conviction-b2491754.html

In order to be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in Michigan, the prosecution had to prove at least one of two theories to jurors beyond a reasonable doubt.
The first theory relies on gross negligence. This theory, as the Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald explained to the court, means that the defendant “caused death” by acting in a grossly negligent manner.
The second theory hinges on a failure to perform a legal duty. This theory means that the defendant had a legal duty to the victim, yet “willfully neglected or refused to perform” that duty – and that this “failure to perform it was grossly negligent to human life”. Ultimately, it means that a victim’s death was directly caused by the defendant’s failure to perform this legal duty.
Judge Cheryl Matthews defined the legal duty in this case when giving the jury their instructions.
“In Michigan, a parent has a legal duty to exercise reasonable care to control their minor child so as to prevent the minor child from intentionally harming others or prevent the minor child from conducting themselves in a way that creates an unreasonable risk of bodily harm to others,” she said.
If either or both of these two theories are proven, that is “sufficient to establish the crime of involuntary manslaughter,” the judge said.

No idea, but if it is the first, it's a step in the right direction, don't you agree?

If her mental health problems were so severe they rendered her unable to understand right from wrong by reasonable mental defect, she should have pled that. They should have presented evidence of her diminished capacity.

She was criminally negligent of a her vulnerable child who committed a heinous crime seemingly with her consent.

She consented to a delusional child under her care owning a gun, and when school showed increasing concern she refused to remove him.

She didn't give a shit about her own child, why would she have cared about the other vulnerable children whose lives she destroyed?

This is all indicative of being a giant self absorbed asshole, not mental illness.

I haven't RTFT but I have followed the case and the trial and I think it's right that she was convicted. She should be held accountable for her actions and inactions.

I hope this legal precedent scares the shit out of parents and adults throughout America and contributes to much-needed change to US gun culture.