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.

Did you even read the article? Clearly says the boy's father will also have a trial.

Yeah, this. It's both of them. And about time parents face some consequences for having firearms within the reach of children, let alone giving them as gifts, honestly.

What the mother knew he had a gun on him at school?!!

I need to read more about this case myself as I must’ve missed that bit. 🤯🤯

agree with pp that it’s so reductive (and dismissive to everyone’s life who they put in danger or killed), to say they’re being convicted for “not predicting the future”.

The main responsibility lies with the parents in this case but I must add the school also didn’t come out looking great in this as well.

At some point even if a parent is pandering to her child or failing to act, you as a school don’t have to do the same . At the very least they should’ve checked his backpack and locker considering the violent drawings they found. Apparently a teacher actually joked about the weight of his bag that morning. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/01/30/us/jennifer-crumbley-trial-oxford-michigan-shooting/index.html

The fact the school also didn’t view him as a threat is worrying. I’ve worked in American and British schools and I can say if he was from another demographic /background it’s likely they’d have acted quicker to exclude him or search his bag. Even though he in fact Ethan Crumbly matches the demographic that most school shooters come from.

An investigation has been conducted into the schools handling of this too.

No child should have access to a gun supervised or not (even in the US).

You got your 10 year old a gun and you think you’re a responsible parent because you’re next to him when he’s shooting it?

Batshit!

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.

Interesting take. I'm not sure what you're basing that on.

This post is a total knee jerk reaction to skim reading a single article.

The case has been broadcast on Court TV recently so the evidence was available to be heard. As others have said, this is a parent who ignored her child crying out for help with his mental health, neglected him in general, bought him a gun, allowed him to take it to school despite his expressions of intent, didn’t tell anyone about this, then refused to collect him from school when they raised concerns. It was an absolute series of opportunities to prevent this tragedy and not only that, actively caused it.

Father’s equivalent trial is upcoming.

I felt much the same as you based on the first article I read, but having read more details I think it's a sound conviction and right that his parents should have been charged with involuntary manslaughter.

It will be interesting to see if the father is also found guilty. It seems likely, but there's always that little niggle about mothers being judged much more harshly than fathers when their children go wrong.

I thought I disagreed with the decision but having read the article I actually thing some of the responsibility for the crime here sits with them. Whether it's the right charge I'm not sure but I do think it was right for a criminal charge to be bought against them

Even if your son wasn’t having mental health issues it’s unbelievable you’d let him take a gun to school?! I love America but honestly every time I’m there it freaks me out that anyone can just be carrying a gun and is likely to. It’s probably the one thing that makes me hesitate on living there again.

This is a great article exposing some of the wider prejudices and biases that let to the shooter going undetected https://www.salon.com/2021/12/13/michigan-high-school-massacre-another-tragic-example-of-how-privilege-people/.

It also includes a letter Jennifer Crumbly sent to Trump because she’s apparently a fan - what a surprise eh 👀
Here’s an excerpt from it and I found this part so ironic given that it’s her family who turned out to be dangerous:

“ My parents teach at a school where their kids come from illegal immigrant parents. Most of their parents are locked up. They don't care about learning and threaten to kill my mom for caring about their grades. Do you realize Mr. Trump that they get free tutors, free tablets from our Government so they can succeed. Why cant my son get those things, do we as hard working Americans not deserve that too?...
I believe YOU are the President who will make these things happen. I have NEVER had this much belief in one person, and you are it.”

I doubt she’ll get 60 years but quite honestly I wouldn’t be mad if she did. She is clearly a deplorable individual.

To reiterate what PP have said, please read the information available about this trial. It's highly unusual, and the parents definitely bear a high degree of responsibility for the murders that their son committed.

I know it's a minor detail but if I was told that my child was researching high calibre bullets on their phone in school, my first instinct would not be to text them "Lol I'm not mad you just have to learn not to get caught"

Totally agree

Christ. So parental responsibility is anti-feminist now? I've heard everything on MN, or so I thought.

The boy’s father will be going on trial for the same charges shortly and hopefully will be convicted too. Both parents failed their son and this resulted in the deaths of 4 people. They wilfully ignored their son’s issues and his pleas for their help. They also ignored the school when the school requested their support/involvement. They then bought their son a gun which he used to shoot up his school. As a result 4 people are dead and multiple people’s lives are ruined including their own child’s. They are absolutely at least partially responsible for all of that.

This is not about blaming a woman. This is about holding people to account for the terrible choices they make.

Yes I've just spotted it - I wasn't aware of all the facts! Sorry everyone!

Buying your 15yo with mental health problems (which you won’t seek help for), who draws pictures of school shootings a gun. In this specific case, yes, she absolutely deserves this sentence.

It's pretty hardcore but if it makes someone pause before buying someone clearly unsuitable a gun then that's a good thing

You went straight to women always being blamed for the failures of others without a clue about what actually happened.

I came here to say omg how awful but after reading the details I think it’s absolutely right!

It's not about blaming the mother rather than the father. The dads trial is next month. They are being tried separately, possibly because they're trying to blame each other?

I think she's culpable. Unless the dad has very good mitigation, he probably is too.

This op. You have a mentality of women are always a victim.

@Swizzlersandtwizzlers what a pathetic attempt to shoe-horn racism.

If you truly believe that lack of checks on White pupils that end in deaths of White children is the result of racism...
Then you must also believe that lack of checks on Black pupils that end is stabbings of Black children is the result of racism. The same lack of checks that "PC warriors" & " Anti-racism campaigners" fought so hard to eradicate... Maybe my mind just doesn't bend that way, numerous times around itself, to even begin to understand.

But look at the climate activists to see what over-zealous rhetoric and I'll-conceived targeting can do to a good cause.

She is culpable thought. She bought her child who had significant MH problems a gun and then refused to engage when the school brought her in for a meeting and wanted her to take him out of school that day after he drew a worrying picture.

Her husband is also being tried.

I don't see any discrimination against women here at all.

Cringing for the op who jumped straight to defending the woman without the slightest idea what she had done. Read the facts before creating a thread, ffs.

White children suffer high rates of stabbing too so not sure why you’ve foolishly jumped to black kids & stabbings? And the fact is black kids ARE stopped and searched more anyway so I don’t even see the relevance. It’s not young black men displaying violent tendencies that are constantly presumed to be innocent. It’s white young men which was my point so it’s really not the “gotcha” you think it is. black young men are also as treated more harshly in the criminal justice system. I studied criminology and this is well evidenced. A white mother I worked with in my former role was appalled to see how her mixed race son was treated in comparison for non-violent crimes to her white sons violent crimes. She had never believed how systemic the racism was until she witnessed it like that and began to do more research on her own. Unfortunately a lot of racism in Britain is insidious and the most racist are the most vocal in denying it, and even get angry when you point out facts such as inconsistent treatment in the justice and education system. Funny that.

Also, I grew up in Glasgow and it was the stab capital for many years. Yet strangely enough the police there don’t harass the largely white youth up there to the same extent, nor did the media seek to demonise white youth or men or white communities at large for this problem. It was linked, quite rightly, to socio-economic and environmental conditions rather than just labelling the (large white) youth up there as a problem.

What they did do however, is eventually treat stabbing as a health issue and this model has proved more successful in reducing stabbings in Glasgow. Stop & search has relatively low rates of success in terms of they rarely find weapons AND its frequent use often damages community trust which then leads to further problems.

Perhaps a more holistic and compassion and effective approach such as the Scottish health model to stabbing could be deployed down here with kids of all races? Probably not though as long as Tories are in power.

So no, racism has not been shoe horned. I didn’t want to type it all out and post all the stats etc, but that article very cogently explained why white privilege and bias against minorities of colour is a plague to everyone and you’ve not managed to refute any of the very sensible and well argued points the author made.

I've often thought there are many cases where parents should be held legally responsible for their children's criminal behaviour and I believe the right verdict was reached in this case. However, given just how many minors commit serious offences in the US and how often negligent and downright terrible parenting plays a part in that criminality, it will be interesting to see if this sets a precedent or if this couple has been singled out. Will it just be unsympathetic Trump supporters put on trial or will everyone whose bad parenting facilitates serious crime find themselves in court?