Jennifer Crumbley/Michegan Shooter's Mother

[KvotheTheBloodless]

AIBU that Jennifer Crumbley being found guilty of her son's crimes is just another example of women always being blamed for the failures of others?

The gist of the prosecution's case is that she should have been able to predict that her son would shoot up the school, and is therefore to blame for the four tragic deaths.

How can we have arrived at a place where you can go to prison for failing to predict the future?!

It will be very interesting to see whether the boy's father is convicted too (separate trial) - I'd wager good money that he'll be found not guilty.

Link to the article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67571551

It says the boy's father will face a trial. The parents gifted the boy the gun just the day before.

I'd say buying someone with quite a serious mental illness and anti-social tendencies a deadly weapon was pretty culpable.

He was 15 and his parents gave him a gun which he used kill people after refusing to get him help for his mental health.

They were asked to take him home on the morning of the shooting but they refused.

Both parents are equally culpable unless they didn’t live together, the mother bought the gun and the father didn’t know about it?

Is that why there’s a separate trial?

As I said on the other thread, parents need to take responsibility for flouting the (already feeble) US gun laws and supplying a minor with MH problems with the means to commit a mass killing while simultaneously refusing to get him the medical treatment he needed to get well. Both parents are being put on trial, hers was just first. I'll say it's an injustice potentially if the father doesn't also get convicted but I am not the judge/jury/DA and can't see the evidence, so don't know how fair that would really be, it really depends on who did what.

She (and the father) bought a gun for a child with known MH issues. The kid was begging for help and having hallucinations and not only did she refuse to acknowledge there was problem, she bought him a fucking gun. What exactly do you expect?

There's a separate trial for the father next month. Try and read the links you post in full before making this a 'poor women' issue. We have enough real ones to deal with without you making them up.

I think that she should have shared the fact that he'd taken a gun to school with his teachers and not just the man she was shagging. Not that he should have had a gun in the first place. I also think Kyle Rittenhouse and the adults around him should have faced charges. Mothers are responsible for their children and not enough are charged when they put them in danger from boyfriends. Likewise if the father is involved, then he has responsibilities. Ethan shouldn't have been charged as an adult and husband MH should have been a mitigating factor.

The mother knew the kid had taken the gun to SCHOOL?!!

What the actual F!

I’d say denying your clearly unstable child mental health support and buying him a deadly weapon makes you pretty clearly implicated in the blame.

There is another thread on this, and I don;t believe you have read what the parents actually did. A whole chain of evidence.

This! It is a unique case - this level of responsibility would not apply to a parent who hadn't behaved so dreadfully, not only by buying him a gun but by refusing to help him and the school.

Finally an act of recognition that parents do have a legal responsibility to protect their children and by proxy the harm they do to others when their actions or lack off could have easily be prevented.

In this case, the parents bought a gun for a child who told them he had mental health issues, they didn't get any help for the mental health issues, on the day of the shooting he wrote something like 'stop me before I do it' and 'blood everywhere' on a worksheet with pics of a gun. The parents were called in but refused to bring son home with them.

So I can see why they convicted.

But yes, I think it's wrong to hold parents responsible for manslaughter in these circumstances. A lesser charge would possibly be appropriate. Really they should have sensible gun laws and an accessible, functional mental health system in the US, but still...

I think giving 60 years in jail for this sort of thing is way over the top. She didn't actually kill anyone.

AIBU that Jennifer Crumbley being found guilty of her son's crimes is just another example of women always being blamed for the failures of others?

Do you even know what happened?

Both parents are equally culpable unless they didn’t live together, the mother bought the gun and the father didn’t know about it?

Is that why there’s a separate trial

They do live together although apparently the mother was having an affair so I can imagine they had issues in their marriage. From what I understand, both parents are blaming each other as part of their defence so that could be why they are having separate trials.

Op, yes women are often blamed, but I don’t think this is a good example of that. Both parents were absolutely negligent and I’d hazard a guess that her affair played a key part in her being distracted from parenting . I’d say the same if it was a man having an affair too.

I’ve been following this case for a while and it’s frustrating how some people who just heard of it this week apparently haven’t read the background and context , before commenting either that they’re picking on women or it’s not fair to blame parent

@WilmaWonka there's a separate trial because of plea and different factors. The same charges are being brought, however the defense and prosecution might change. The father actually purchased the gun. The Mother failed to store it legally.

Absolutely she should be accountable and I am a mother with a child who has his own gun and has done since he was 10. It may be his and his size but it is under my complete control he has no access to it and no idea where the key are kept, only used when we are literally standing right next to him under our control.
Who lets a child have unsupervised access to a gun and that’s before you even start to add in all his mental health issues a lot of which she knew about. I think it is completely right she should go to prison for this.

Have you actually read the facts of this case OP?

"I think giving 60 years in jail for this sort of thing is way over the top. She didn't actually kill anyone."

But her failure to follow the law caused the death of four children. Given the, quite correct sentences in the US, it's reflective of the crime.

You would have a point if the father was not also being tried and if he also played a part in buying the gun and denying access to mental health care. However he is going to trial and I haven't read enough to know his level of involvement.

I think 60 years is really over the top, but she (and the father too maybe) definitely bear some responsibility for those deaths. They deserve a custodial sentence and maybe it will be a wake up call for other parents turning a blind eye or worse.

It’s not about “failing to predict the future,” it’s that his parents ignored several warnings, bought him a gun when he was underage and did not engage when he clearly needed mental health support. I think you’re getting spooked by the headline of a case you haven’t read.

My initial thought was that you couldn't blame the parents for something like this. Then I read about how this boy was brought up. He had asked his parents about seeing a doctor when he started becoming mentally ill and they didn't bother. It seemed as if he was severely neglected and there were plenty of warning signs. I mean who buys a kid a gun when he is telling you that he is hearing voices in his head?

You're clearly not reading all the details. She knew he had a gun. She knew he had mental issues. She did nothing. Guilty as fuck.

Yes, she was asked if the family was locked at home and said that it was. She didn't mention that he had his own gun in his backpack. But she texted her bit on the side about it. Which is why she was found guilty.

I should imagine the the fact the mother knew he had a gun on him and didn’t tell the school when called in about the picture he’d drawn mentioned by a PP, and refused to take him home knowing he had it in his bag, had a bearing on the sentence!

Those kids wouldn’t have been killed and the others wounded if they’d taken him home and removed the gun, or just told the school so they could have taken his bag!

Totaliy appropriate IMO.