MI - 4 students killed, 6 injured, Oxford High School shooting, 30 Nov 2021 *Arrest incl parents* #2

[otto]

Is it not obvious from the dead and injured classmates and a teacher that the gun was not properly secured from the boy?

That's true, but was he sneaky in getting the gun?

He told several people, in a believable way, that a violent, bloody, shooting drawing with the word "help" was a game design sketch. No one probed any further about his interest in guns.

Perhaps the parents thought the gun was secure, perhaps duped by their son?

 

[Doghairrules]

Wonder what that could be?

The journal(s).

 

[otto]

Didn't the school search him and his backpack? My kids high school would search for weapons in cases like that, ---if someone was being aggressive or made threats in writing or on social media---IMMEDIATELY SEARCHED and their LOCKER SEARCHED and their vehicle as well.

Did he have the weapon in his possession that day and he was able to walk away and use it?

I read that it was believed that the gun was already in the school. Didn't he go into the bathroom and come out shooting?

 

[everybodhi]

That's true, but was he sneaky in getting the gun?

He told several people, in a believable way, that a violent, bloody, shooting drawing with the word "help" was a game design sketch. No one probed any further about his interest in guns.

Perhaps the parents thought the gun was secure, perhaps duped by their son?

Come on, otto.
Maybe their defense attorneys will have better arguments than this but so far, judging by their arraignment performance, it’s not looking good.

 

[MsMarple]

I don't think for a second that his parents didn't *think* about him possibly having the gun at school that day. They just didn't bring it up.

I mean really, it was purchased just days before as a gift for him...they're called to the school, his violent drawing depicting a shooting..mom and dad didn't think to mention anything? I don't buy that.

Jmo

Within minutes of hearing about the shooting the mother texted Ethan, saying “Don’t do it.” Not “Are you all right? Are you safe?” She said “Don’t do it.”

Fifteen minutes later the father called 911 to say his son may be the shooter.

That sure sounds like they knew something was not right; they just realized it too late.

ETA Here’s a good article outlining the timeline including the day of the shooting for those who are trying to catch up.
Prosecutor Lays Out Disturbing Timeline Explaining Why Oxford School Shooting Suspect's Parents Were Charged

 

[otto]

Come on, otto.
Maybe their defense attorneys will have better arguments than this but so far, judging by their arraignment performance, it’s not looking good.

I'm leaning towards benefit of the doubt, regardless of how they appear today. I didn't watch the entire arraignment, just charges. Both parents seemed quite upset with the charges - but perhaps his parents carelessly gave their son a gun to take to school.

 

[Snoopster]

Get your vaccines people!

U.S. man abducted teen and drove her to Canadian border: police

This man was trying to cross the border with a kidnap victim, but he didn't have his vaccine proof.
Fail!


I wonder if the senior Crumbleys have been vaccinated.

 

[otto]

Within minutes of hearing about the shooting the mother texted Ethan, saying “Don’t do it.” Not “Are you all right? Are you safe?” She said “Don’t do it.”

Fifteen minutes later the father called 911 to say his son may be the shooter.

That sure sounds like they knew something was not right; they just realized it too late.

Did they hear about the shooting, quickly check their new gun, it was missing, then mom texted him to stop, dad called police?

They put it together quickly when they heard about the shooting.

 

[everybodhi]

I'm leaning towards benefit of the doubt, regardless of how they appear today. I didn't watch the entire arraignment, just charges. Both parents seemed quite upset with the charges - but perhaps his parents carelessly gave their son a gun to take to school.

They carelessly and illegally gave their son a gun and did not prevent him from taking it to school.
“Involuntary manslaughter”.

 

[Doghairrules]

Yeah, it's hard to understand. We have msm reports of kids asking to stay home from school that day because they "felt something bad" was going to happen and there were rumors swirling about. The parents did listen enough to let their kids stay home but didn't call the school just to let the office know or even ask about the rumors?

IMO a couple of concerned phone calls from parents coupled with EC's teacher catching him searching for ammo on his cell phone might have been enough to take those drawings a lot more seriously.

Waiting for more information...

I feel like this is exactly what happened earlier and the school blew them off. So they may have felt it would just be wasted effort/given up on the school taking the rumors seriously.

 

[Estelle]

I feel like this is exactly what happened earlier and the school blew them off. So they may have felt it would just be wasted effort/given up on the school taking the rumors seriously.

Maybe the boy was showing off at school about having a gun the days before?

 

[ReadySet]

Students do not spend more time at school than at home. If parents don't spend time with their kids, that's on them.
It was the shooter who said it was a game, not the school.
As the parents did not do a damn thing about it, they apparently accepted it as normal.

It's interesting that we so easily accept a violent drawing from a 15 year old child, where there is a gun, blood and a plea for help, and quickly dismiss it as "a game." It seems like we have some really crazy values when a drawing like that is so easily accepted as normal.

 

[Arkay]

How can one wait on word on an appointment to turn themselves in for an arraignment if they turn their phone off?

Right, and furthermore, what kind of parents would have their phones turned off when they have a 15-year old son in jail for murder?

It’s not just they who are in trouble, it’s their child!!! How could anyone just cut off contact like that under these circumstances?
They clearly are demonstrating a total lack of concern for helping Ethan in any way.

Someone, I think maybe @otto, ???, said earlier that the father didn’t raise three children to be school shooters. Well, the father abandoned the first two children so they were not, in fact, raised by him. Then of his three children, Ethan is the only one who had this mother.

IMO this was a very combustible pairing and definitely impacted Ethan. Although I’m always cautious because so many decent parents have a child who turns out to commit crimes, in this case the parents’ lack of care seems very obvious. The mother’s texts especially show a detachment from parental guidance, IMO.

 

[MsMarple]

Did they hear about the shooting, quickly check their new gun, it was missing, then mom texted him to stop, dad called police?

They put it together quickly when they heard about the shooting.

Apparently the dad did check on the gun when he heard about the shooting:

Fifteen minutes later, at 1:37 p.m., James Crumbley calls 911 to report that a gun was missing from his house and he believes his son may be the shooter. The gun had been kept unlocked in a drawer in the parents' bedroom, McDonald says.
Oxford High School shooting timeline: Key moments in the case

 

[Cool Cats]

Haven't seen anything on this - did the parents have weapons on them (or in their vehicle) when they were arrested?

They were unarmed.

It's believed the Crumbleys were let into a commercial building by someone, Detroit Police Chief James White said.

Police know who that someone is and those who aided the couple could face criminal charges, White said.

The Crumbleys were found hiding inside and were "distressed" White said. They were unarmed.

James and Jennifer Crumbley caught, arrested after vehicle is found in Detroit

 

[Doghairrules]

Although I understand that the ex-wife's statement fits nicely into the desired belief that the parents are responsible for the actions of their 15 year old son, what I hear in the statement is an ex-wife who is angry about the amount of child support she was allowed to receive, angry that child support was unpaid, and not happy about her ex-husband's wife.

I don't think anything she said has anything to do with the shootings. Realistically, a man who had three children with three different women did not raise three children to shoot children at school. One of the three children clearly has psychological problems that were not addressed by the school, the police, or the parents.

The drawing was clearly a cry for help, very likely help for something that was happening in the school. The school's decision to have him removed from the school, rather than address what happened in the school to trigger the psychological problems, was perhaps the straw that broke the camel's back.



If the child shooter was bullied at school and no one did anything to help, how is telling the upset child to leave the school helping? That's blaming the victim.

"Investigators said they are still trying to determine a motive for the deadly shooting because the suspect isn’t speaking to them. However, some classmates have said Crumbley was bullied, according to the Detroit Free Press."
​

Michigan school shooting suspect identified as Ethan Crumbley

The school asking the parents to take him home and get him help was not the straw that broke the camels back because a) he had the GUN with him already and b) per LE, he made a video about doing this and wrote about it before the day of the shooting.

 

[otto]

Authorities and students were aware of the shooting threat on that day. One student stayed home because of the threats.

"The suspect's father bought the 9mm Sig Sauer used in the shooting on Friday, Bouchard said, adding that he did not know why the man bought the gun. Bouchard said the suspect had practised shooting with the gun and posted pictures of it and the target.
...

Undersheriff Mike McCabe said earlier that authorities were aware of allegations circulating on social media that there had been threats of a shooting at the roughly 1,700-student school before Tuesday's attack, but he cautioned against believing that narrative until investigators can look into it.

He also downplayed the significance of an incident in early November when a deer head was thrown off the school roof, which he said was "absolutely unrelated" to the shooting. The vandalism prompted school administrators to post two letters to parents on the school's website this month, saying they were responding to rumours of a threat against the school but had found none.
...

One parent, Robin Redding, said her son, Treshan Bryant, is a 12th grader at the school but stayed home Tuesday. She said he had heard threats that there could be a shooting.

"This couldn't be just random," she said.

Redding didn't provide specifics about what her son had heard, but she expressed concern with school safety in general.

"Kids just, like they're just mad at each other at this school," she said."
​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/michigan-school-shooting-1.6268331

 

[Doghairrules]

Quite true. However, charging the parents because they did not prevent a shooting that they were very likely unaware of makes no sense. The prosecutor states that owning a gun means securing and locking it, but Michigan has no law regarding storage of guns in private homes.

The prosecutor's statements seem to contradict law.

"Investigators said Ethan Crumbley, 15, emerged from a bathroom with a gun and started shooting students in the hallway.

The teen is charged as an adult with murder, terrorism and other crimes.

Under Michigan law, the involuntary manslaughter charge filed against the parents in such cases can be pursued if authorities believe someone contributed to a situation where there was a high chance of harm or death.

Parents in the U.S. are rarely charged in school shootings involving their children, even as most minors get guns from a parent or relative's house, according to experts."
​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/jennifer-james-crumbley-michigan-school-shooting-1.6273754

"Owning a gun means securing it properly and locking it and keeping the ammunition separate," [prosecutor Karen McDonald] said.
​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/michigan-school-shooting-charges-1.6269907

"Michigan has no law covering the storage of weapons in private homes, and only limited ability to charge a gun owner if a carelessly stored"
​

The Detroit News

But it IS against the law in Michigan for a minor to own a gun. His father lied when he bought the gun, saying he would be the owner of it. The mom posted on social media that it was Ethan’s Christmas present. They bought their son a semi automatic 9mm, didn’t keep it stored the way gun owners ought to store their weapons, and blew the school’s concerns off. They definitely enabled this to happen. Why else would both parents immediately know he was the shooter??

 

[borndem]

1000% agree. Especially if the threat that scared them was from EC’s post. It can’t be, right??? There were 1800 kids at that school - no one called the school or LE? I must be missing something here…

Do we know for sure that no one called the school about this? Did all of the students who stayed home "play sick"?
If my son had told me the real reason he was staying home, I absolutely would have called the school.
I just can't imagine that not one student would have told the parents why s/he was not going -- and I can't imagine that none of the parents would have called. JMO and SMH.
Yes, this is a mystery.

 

[kaen]

I have been grappling with this whole "didn't want to take him out of school" thing. I can't wrap my head around the idea that their child was writing things down that appeared to be a cry for help AND they insisted he go back to class. I don't know many parents who would be, "Yeah, honey we see that you were writing and drawing things about being hopeless and bullets going through people but dad and I think that you would be happier in science class. So, we won't take you home." At the very least, the parents I know would be more apt to say, "Let's go get a bite to eat, ditch the school work and talk about what is happening or you can show me that video game you are working on." Their reaction is mind boggling. They were both called from work. They both came but neither opted to spend private moments that might have changed the fate of those he murdered. If the counselor felt the only way to get this kid help was to threaten protective services if he wasn't seen in 48 hours, it shows a lot about their mindset and inability to comfort/help/rescue this young man. They let him become a murderer. He will have to spend the rest of his life in jail b/c they failed to parent him. If convicted, I believe it will be the right outcome but I empathize with him needing help and knowing that these two people wouldn't rise to the task. And, once again, he was failed because the pushed to leave him there.