Why were the parents of the Michigan school shooter arrested and charged with manslaughter?
The recent Michigan school shooting was a terrible crime that resulted in the death of four high school students. It was terrible in a host of ways, first and foremost of course that result. But it was also terrible in the way the school treated the shooter prior to the event, and what appears to be – if reports are correct – the behavior of the parents as well.
However, not only has the 15-year-old shooter been charged as an adult with “one count of terrorism causing death, four counts of first-degree murder, seven counts of assault with intent to murder and 12 counts of possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony,” but his parents have been charged with involuntary manslaughter.
My first reaction to that last fact was astonishment, because although some extreme gun control advocates have discussed charging parents for the crimes of their children, I’ve never heard of it done, even in school shootings where there was some negligence involved. The most I’ve ever heard about would be a charge for improperly storing a gun.
What did these parents do to draw forth such charges from the prosecution in this case? If initial reports are correct, they seem to have had a remarkably cavalier attitude about their son’s cry for help, and they stored the gun in an unlocked nightstand drawer. But in Michigan, those are not ordinarily crimes:
Legal experts were quick to point out that such charges are far from the norm — it is James and Jennifer Crumbley’s 15-year-old son, Ethan, who is accused of pulling the trigger and killing four of his fellow high school students.
“It’s exceptionally unusual,” said Cassandra Crifasi, deputy director of Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence and Research. “We rarely hold people accountable for giving someone a gun who shouldn’t have one.”…
“These are extraordinary charges,” said CNN legal analyst Areva Martin. “We know that prosecutors have been reluctant to charge parents in these school shooting cases, even though in some cases, like the Crumbley cases today, parents seem to have some responsibility.”…
There are no safe gun storage laws in Michigan, the prosecutor said. “We are not legally required to store your weapon in a safe manner,” she said.
That’s certainly interesting.
My guess is that the prosecutors are choosing to highlight these parents and throw the book at them in order to tighten up the gun laws in the state.
I’ve read a great many articles in an attempt to get clear on the facts of the case, and it’s rough going because there are some contradictions in the stories and a general lack of clarity. As best I can piece it together, we have parents who “gave” a gun to the 15-year-old for Christmas, although it doesn’t seem to have been actually given to him but instead was stored in the parents’ unlocked nightstand, thus giving him easy access to it. Several days later, a teacher noticed a drawing Ethan had made of a shooting and blood, and also this:
Between the gun and the bullet was a drawing of person who appeared to have been shot twice. He also wrote, “My life is useless” and “The world is dead,” according to the prosecutor.
Classic signs of severe depression, among other things. This kid was clearly at risk, and the school knew it at that point (nothing has been said about what he was like earlier).
The county sheriff has said that James Crumbley purchased the gun used in the violence just days before the school shooting. McDonald said the pair were made aware of disturbing, violent images on the day of the shooting and were urged to get him counseling.
“James and Jennifer Crumbley resisted the idea of their son leaving the school at that time,” she said during a news conference Friday. “Instead, James and Jennifer Crumbley left the high school without their son. He was returned to the high school.”
This is remarkably odd. The parents sound negligent, but it seems to me that the greater negligence may have been on the part of the school – unless, of course, school authorities had no choice legally but to bend to the parents’ wishes.
The fact that the parents “resisted” having their son leave school that day seems irresponsible to me, but hardly grounds for manslaughter. Did the school underline for the parents the fact that this behavior (the drawings) on the part of their son was very grave, or did Ethan say it was just a stupid joke and did the parents believe it? How much did the school authorities press it? What were they empowered to do? Was this kid a prior troublemaker, or had he hidden the enormous depth of his propensity for violence and probable mental problems? Had he ever been in counseling, and what was the responsibility of the counselor – what did that person know? Could the school have ordered a psych evaluation without the parents’ permission? Did the school even request that? Was there a school counselor? Had the boy been referred to counseling earlier, and if so what happened there? Did anyone at the school check his backpack for a weapon, and if so why not? The parents didn’t mention the weapon – and that is one of the reasons they were charged – but does that make them criminals or just plain stupid?
At any rate, after the shooting, apparently the father went home and checked to see if the gun was still in the drawer, and then:
James Crumbley called 911 to say that a gun was missing from their home and that Ethan might be the shooter. The gun had been kept in an unlocked drawer in the parents’ bedroom, McDonald said.
Why lay it all on the parents? Unless they are sociopaths – which I suppose is a possibility,considering a shocking text the mother is reported to have sent at some point that day but before the shooting, “L-O-L I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught” – they have just sustained one of the worst blows possible in life. And now they are in prison, probably separated from each other, and charged with manslaughter. I hope they are on suicide watch, because they are at risk for suicide.
Are there other children in this family? If so, they’ll need some heavy-duty counseling, too, after being taken in by relatives, friends, or foster care.
As for the charges against the parents:
Under Michigan law an involuntary manslaughter charge can be pursued if there’s evidence someone contributed to a victim’s harm or death. If convicted, the Crumbleys could face up to 15 years in prison.
Asked whether school officials may potentially be charged, [prosecutor] McDonald said: “The investigation’s ongoing.”
What can we find out about prosecutor MacDonald, the person who made the decision to charge the parents so quickly? She’s a Democrat who was a judge dealing with family issues, and then in 2019 ran for DA [my emphasis]:
In April 2019, McDonald took the unusual step of stepping down from her judgeship, announcing her intention to run for the Democratic nomination for Oakland County Prosecuting Attorney in the 2020 election, thus forcing the third-term incumbent prosecutor Jessica Cooper into a highly-contested primary election. McDonald campaigned on a progressive, reformist platform focused on limiting incarceration for non-violent crimes, and ensuring prosecutorial decisions are informed by racial justice considerations.
No surprise whatsoever there. I also wouldn’t be surprised if MacDonald had received Soros money, although I can’t find anything about that.
Here’s what MacDonald said a few days ago when she was contemplating charging the Crumbleys:
“We know that owning a gun means securing it properly and locking it and keeping the ammunition separate and not allowing access to other individuals, particularly minors,” McDonald said.
“We have to hold individuals accountable who don’t do that.”
Yes, that is good policy for gun owners. But apparently it’s not the law in Michigan. So it sounds as though MacDonald wants to act as though it already is the law, and make the unsympathetic Crumbleys the poster children for that.
I will also go out on a limb and say that, after reading MacDonald’s Wiki entry, I’m pretty sure that, had the perpetrator and his parents been black, he would have been charged as a minor and his parents would not have been charged at all. And no, I’m not defending the Crumbleys, who appear to have acted very poorly throughout. But I think they just may be the only people in the US in their position who have ever been so charged under similar circumstances, and that bothers me.
[NOTE: Why is a 15-year-old being prosecuted as an adult? I’m not saying whether I’m in favor of that or not, but I’m talking about Michigan law. It seems very unusual for this to have occurred, because the law reads this way:
Today [October 31, 2019] Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed 18 bills as part of the “Raise the Age” legislative package, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, to raise the age of who is considered an adult under the criminal justice system from 17 to 18 years old.
“I’m proud that Michigan has joined 46 other states in ending the unjust practice of charging and punishing our children as adults when they make mistakes,” Whitmer said. “These bills will strengthen the integrity of our justice system by ensuring that children have access to due process that is more responsive to juveniles.”…
While most crimes will be subject to the updated age threshold, violent offenses could still be prosecuted as an adult under the prosecutor’s discretion.
Just as I thought, this was MacDonald’s decision because she apparently has discretion to charge Ethan Crumbley as an adult or as a minor.]
So if they are charging the shooter as an adult how are the parents responsible? If the shooter was an 18 year old high school student would that be different?
Seems like prosecutorial overreach against people that are very easily disliked by the public.
Lot of that going around lately.
Griffin:
The parents are not directly charged with the same crime as the child, as though they are responsible for exactly what he did. They are being charged with a separate and related crime of their own.
neo,
Yes, but his murder charges and their manslaughter charges are for the same dead people, right?
Seems like a reach to charge them with any crime directly related to the murders.
“If initial reports are correct, they seem to have had a remarkably cavalier attitude about their son’s cry for help, and they stored the gun in an unlocked nightstand drawer.”
If the gun is kept in a locked safe of what use would it be if the home is broken into? The primary reason for keeping a gun in the nightstand is so it’s quickly available if needed in the middle of the night.
“My guess is that the prosecutors are choosing to highlight these parents and throw the book at them in order to tighten up the gun laws in the state.” neo
Bingo.
Griffin,
Negligently acting as an Accessory to Murder is what the prosecutor’s rationale is likely to be.
Why lay it all on the parents? Unless they are sociopaths
Well, they are Trump supporters.
The school will probably get off but I think they are equally to blame with the parents. If the parents refused to take him home, call the police. I suspect that prog prosecutor is thinking of higher office.
Karl Denninger has a post today agreeing with Mike.
I’ve read elsewhere that the charges were announced by McDonald at a press conference before the parents had been located, much less taken into custody – and this unheard-of tactic didn’t amuse the sheriff. Given the circumstances, and as others have pointed out, the beauty treatments and wardrobe in preparation for this announcement, it would appear the prosecutor is taking this as her ‘big moment’ to launch efforts toward making a name for herself. Maybe she figures that being a judge wasn’t leveraging social change fast enough. But…..I wonder what her skills will be in shopping for a judge in this case, hey? Bet she knows all of ’em, and knows precisely how to work the system to that advantage. Maybe this is trying out a new way of setting precedents – getting a pal judge with similar views to sit your case and double-teaming it through.
Everything is the same but instead the parents are big time knife collectors, have all kinds of knives in the house, and then the 15 year old takes one of the knives to school and goes on a stabbing spree do the parents get charged the same as now?
Why lay it all on the parents?
Because the teachers’ union owns the Democratic Party, and advancing the interests of the Democratic Party is what prosecutors like Karen McDonald (D-Oakland County, Michigan) do.
It does sound like this is an anti-gun prosecutor trying to make law. Presumably a competent defense attorney will shred the charge about gun storage, since there is no law requiring it. The question will be how disturbed their son is and whether they reasonably knew it. It seems to me the school administrators should be charged or reprimanded somehow. As Neo says, it depends on what the law in Michigan will allow, but after finding a drawing like that, sending the student directly to counseling and out of school would have been smart.
Mike K, they’re Trump supporters? I read the Daily Mail and it doesn’t say so, which is where one would usually see that kind of thing.
The notion you’re obligated to keep your guns locked in a safe on the one-in-a-million chance that your kid might be this year’s Michael Carneal (and you’re criminally negligent if you don’t) is errant nonsense (but predictable in our Idiocracy moment).
The delicts which might adhere to the parents and the school officials might in saner time have been sorted out in civil suits. That’s when we didn’t have progtrash occupying the prosecutors’ offices all over America. George Soros delenda est.
The question will be how disturbed their son is and whether they reasonably knew it.
These sorts of events are bizarre outliers, so few people will see them coming. What you can condemn (see the Broward County school shooting in 2018) is repeated instances of learned helplessness by officialdom (with parents implicated now and again). That may be the case here or it may not.
““We know that owning a gun means securing it properly and locking it and keeping the ammunition separate and not allowing access to other individuals, particularly minors,” McDonald said.”
Some of this is fine, but is really situational. If this (“securing it properly and locking it and keeping the ammunition separate and not allowing access to other individuals”) is applied across the board then there is no way that a gun in your household can be used in self defense because of the time and distance to be crossed when an emergency happens.
This is only a slight ways down from that Washington DC law where they added that the gun had to be broken down into pieces which were to be stored, locked, separately.
Whatever you think of the parents actions/inactions this prosecutor is attempting to make self defense a right with no effective means to exercise.
That the mother cast a ballot for Trump in 2016 is now on Heavy.com. She appears to be someone of eclectic views.
They look like a common-and-garden middle class family. She sells real estate and he’s a client-contact person at an office-supply firm. They evidently met in Florida and after living and working around Jacksonville and then around Seattle, they settle in Oakland County, Michigan where she spent some of her upbringing and where it appears her family has history.
They’re just the sort of people to whose welfare is a matter of complete indifference to the collection of interests for whom the Democratic Party is a vehicle.
Plus, geoffb, she seems to be inventing laws which do not exist in Michigan.
Whatever you think of the parents actions/inactions this prosecutor is attempting to make self defense a right with no effective means to exercise.
Well, now you know what’s in the memos arriving from Soros central. Prosecutor in Kenosha got them too.
she seems to be inventing laws which do not exist in Michigan.
What we’ve learned since 6 January is that the judiciary are commonly happy to help such an enterprising prosecutor.
but after finding a drawing like that, sending the student directly to counseling and out of school would have been smart.
Because people with the initials ‘LCSW’ after their names accomplish so much.
“[G]etting a pal judge with similar views to sit your case and double-teaming it through.”
Very much IIRC the sequence that ended up being “United States v. Miller” in 1939.
Negligently acting as an Accessory to Murder is what the prosecutor’s rationale is likely to be.
Not sure about Michigan, but that would be a nonsense formulation in New York. (The offense in New York law is ‘criminal facilitation’ and it has to be an intentional act).
I will also go out on a limb and say that, after reading MacDonald’s Wiki entry, I’m pretty sure that, had the perpetrator and his parents been black, he would have been charged as a minor and his parents would not have been charged at all.
Well, that’s the culture of a large swath of our professional-managerial bourgeoisie, and the Democratic Party is their vehicle. What you say is perfectly believable as we speak and would have seemed kooky ten years ago. I’m not liking this historical moment in which we live.
Kate on December 4, 2021 at 6:54 pm said:
Mike K, they’re Trump supporters? I read the Daily Mail and it doesn’t say so, which is where one would usually see that kind of thing.
One of the first reports I saw included the text of a letter she allegedly wrote to Trump thanking him for defending the second amendment.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10271987/How-billionaire-George-Soros-bankrolled-DAs-Democrat-cities-HIGHEST-crime-rates.html
As George Soros grows older, he looks more and more like Davros from Dr. Who.
Art Deco —
Either that or he’s performed the great necromantic magics to transform himself into a D&D lich.
https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Lich
“Not sure about Michigan, but that would be a nonsense formulation in New York.” Art Deco
Apparently you didn’t get the memo. The law is whatever they can get a judge to agree to… nor does it matter if it is overturned on appeal. As in the minds of much of the public, the narrative will have been advanced.
Just as with Kyle Rittenhouse, who murdered two black men and wounded another…
Even now, that ‘narrative’ is cemented in the minds of many Biden voters.
My granddaughter knows one of the wounded. And out daughter in law is maybe two degrees of separation from one of the dead. And is a high school teacher not so far from Oxford.
This was a horrible thing and we make a mistake if we do not consider displacement requiring more perps than just one disturbed kid. The prosecutor is playing to this.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/oxford-high-school-appears-to-have-used-controversial-restorative-discipline-practices-prior-to-school-shooting
No surprise there. Half the school administrators in America are ruining the reputations of the other half.
Richard Aubrey, that article about “restorative discipline” and “research-based social and emotional learning” is chilling.
One thing that I don’t see anything about in any of the reports is whether the Crumbley boy had any history of “acting out” with violence, or even making statements (as opposed to his own notes) about violence.
Teenage boys have lots of wild stuff in their heads, and much of it is fantasy. It seems to me that the boy obviously was “disturbed,” but unless he acted on it there is not much for either the school or the parents to go on.
Hindsight is 20/20, of course, and this is horrific. Was this kid a problem before–or just a quiet oddball?
As someone who was bullied in high school I suspect there was some very effective bullying going on. I have a sense that teachers are often afraid of those doing the bullying, leaving the targets totally defenseless mentally.
A white redneck family probably struggling to make ends meet finds itself the target of the Woke leftist elite. A tragedy in every way.
Has anyone asked Angela Davis about charging the parents with supplying the weapon used in heinous murders?
boatbuilder:
I plan to write another post on the subject on Monday (Sunday is usually my day off for posting), but I have discovered that he had no previous such history at all, much as I suspected. See this.
He fooled the school counselors as well as the parents. That makes the charging of the parents even worse.
Has anyone asked Angela Davis about charging the parents with supplying the weapon used in heinous murders?
Game, set, match.
A white redneck family probably struggling to make ends meet
It’s a suburban family with two middle class jobs and just one dependent. (They had some lean years ca. 2016 when the father was laid up after a stroke). They’re living in Oakland County, which is not where the cheap seats suburbs in Detroit are located. Her roots are in Michigan, not Mississippi.
He fooled the school counselors as well as the parents. That makes the charging of the parents even worse.
Anarcho-tyranny.
Didn’t we already see this story on “Law & Order” ?
I dimly recall an episode in which one of the ADAs suggests charging someone with “bad parenting in the first degree”.
I absolutely think this weak kid should be locked up for a long time. There are a lot of us these days that know our lives are useless but we don’t try to hurt others.
At the same time, the answer to all of the questions including why the kid is being charged as an adult and why the parents are going to jail for decades is because they are white.
Imagine if they locked up the mothers and grandmothers of all of the persons committing gun violence in Chicago
Going by the involuntary manslaughter law, I can understand trying the question if “providing a gun to a person days before it is used in a murder” fits this law. I think it could open a judicial can of worms. Minors of this age or more likely to kill themselves and others with alcohol, drugs (prescription or otherwise) and motor vehicles. These things are usually available with access similarly as easy as this firearm. And similar cans of worms were opened when bars started being held responsible for drunk drivers (although I think that is only civil responsibility and I dislike these laws). But, as neo notes, there is nothing illegal or extraordinary about a firearm being in an unlocked drawer. And the only way you can make me care about that in this case is two elements; that it was a gift to the child (so the child recognizes it is theirs to use) and knowledge of the child’s potential to cause harm when the firearm was gifted to the child.
Seeing the latest from neo about the child’s history; I’m thinking this is prosecutorial abusive activism.
Why were they charged?
Because they are WHITE !!
When black gang bangers shoot and kill other blacks (which is the case 99% of the time) , how often are the parent of the killers charged with any crimes?
OH, that’s right, ZERO PER CENT of the time.
After all, the killers go home to sleep and they probably bring their guns home with them. So why didn’t the parents confiscate the guns? Is this not criminal negligence?
If this school shooter was black or hispanic, who thinks the parents would have been charged with anything??
The view from the NYT. h/t Insty
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/unhinged-nyt-journalists-foulmouthed-voicemail-for-great-lakes-gun-rights/
And the view from the GLGR which got the NYT so hot.
https://greatlakesgunrights.org/press-release/
“he got the gun from his parents”. Ergo the parents supplied the weapon which makes them accomplices.
In theory it only makes them accomplices if they knew their son was going to use the gun for the crime, but that’s easily brushed under the rug in a far left court by simply claiming that they were “white supremacists” and/or “far right extremists” and thus “bad people”.
Which also of course leads to a new avenue for more anti-firearms legislation, namely a ban on buying guns for other people (including others in your own household), which will no doubt be framed as “a loophole to circumvent federal background checks”.
I absolutely think this weak kid should be locked up for a long time. T
He shot four people to death. The State of Michigan would be acting within its proper discretion to put him in front of a firing squad.
Except that Michigan law has “life without parole” as the maximum sentence.
Art Deco is going hot. Earlier, you more subtly remarked not liking the times we’re living in.
Expanding on this theme — out dire times and where prog fascists are taking us — is Victor Davis Hanson’s latest entitled Third Worldizing America.”
“Third Worldization reflects the asymmetry of law enforcement. Ideology and money, not the law, adjudicate who gets arrested and tried, and who does not.”
Not just the Banana Republic that Obama pushed the US into becoming, outwardly. But now becoming a lawless hell-hole, internally.
God. do I hate these fascists. They must be dispatched like we were once famous for doing abroad.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/victor-davis-hanson-third-worldizing-america
To the tird world where corrupt elites menace their betters. That’s exactly where the US is headed.
Neo wrote to Boatbuilder, “but I have discovered that he had no previous such history [acting out] at all, much as I suspected.”
I had a history of acting out violently in school, in classrooms, at home when I was a kid. I was sent to “the office”, told to stand outside the classroom door, and sent to my room. There is, however, nothing but praise in my academic file K-12. Mostly, my plight was just ignored and I stewed in my anger.
I was bullied physically and psychologically. When I would report it, I was removed from the situation while the bully went free to continue the bullying. One bully was voted “most likely to commit murder.” He was never reprimanded until he met his end violently as a soldier in peacetime Germany.
I am not surprised there is no record of any bad behavior. Student behavior problems reflect badly on the school and the administrators.
Indigo Red:
So you’re assuming, based on your own history, there was bad behavior that was covered up? You are stretching there and assuming facts not in evidence, based on your own history.
I strongly believe you are wrong. His lack of previous obvious problems explains the otherwise inexplicable behavior of the school and parents.
If you consider organized criminal and terrorist gangs being thought of as allies by the Progressive Left much of what they are doing in the legal system, both for making laws and selective enforcement of them, makes more sense.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/489397/
Art Deco:
You wrote of Ethan Crumbley: “The State of Michigan would be acting within its proper discretion to put him in front of a firing squad.”
Not according to US law, it wouldn’t. Executions of the under-18 are banned in the US. Ethan Crumbley is well under 18; he is 15.
Executions of the under-18 are banned in the US. Ethan Crumbley is well under 18; he is 15.
The State of Michigan would be acting within its proper discretion in ignoring federal appellate judges, who had no business making such a ruling.
Art Deco:
Oh, so you think it’s “proper discretion” for any state to ignore any SCOTUS ruling with which it disagrees. Good to know.
Oh, by the way, that SCOTUS ruling was made in line with the constitutional ban on “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Perhaps you’re in favor of drawing and quartering, too? Or going back to these good old days?
I watch the prosecuting attorney’s press conference on the charging decision. My impression is that she is stamped from the same mold as Gretchen Whitmer, the current governor. Bossy, entitled, superior–yup, a literal Karen. I think she is launching a bid for higher office, maybe Michigan AG or governor to succeed Whitmer.
“Parents have repeatedly questioned whether the district did enough to address threats leading up to the shooting, following reports that many students were afraid to go to school due to rumors of an imminent shooting.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10276113/amp/School-shooter-Ethan-Crumbley-duped-counselors-claim-graphic-drawing-plan-VIDEO-GAME.html
If this is true, maybe some kids who “saw something” didn’t “say something”. It seems that some people dropped the ball. Lots of coverage at the link.
Neo – “So you’re assuming, based on your own history, there was bad behavior that was covered up? You are stretching there and assuming facts not in evidence, based on your own history. You are stretching there and assuming facts not in evidence, based on your own history.”
NO. I’m basing it on the fact that his fellow students said he was being, pick on and bullied. https://youtu.be/cSSeODF1AcI
Your assertion that “a shocking text the mother is reported to have sent at some point that day but before the shooting, “L-O-L I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught” had anything to do with the shooting is completely wrong. That text had nothing to do with killing people and is totally out of context.
You are assuming that your blog is a courtroom or a law class. It is neither; it’s a blog. And, yes, I am using my own history for comparison. That is what our justice system and assumption of innocence were supposed to be about, not strictly about the all mighty law. Understanding and compassion are what the public (jury) was meant to bring to the process, but what does the layman who has experienced similar behavior know about anything. Same crap I’ve heard before. The law is the law, anything else doesn’t matter. I’m done.
}}} Did the …
Unless I missed it in my quick scan, you missed a very critical question… that’s not surprising, because we are not taught to consider it at all, by most of our sources… To wit:
“Was he on — or recently off — ADHD meds?”
😉
We need to push for an answer to this question a LOT more.
:-/
}}} I’m not defending the Crumbleys, who appear to have acted very poorly throughout
While you’re at it, let’s indict Trayvon’s parents… who were unquestionably, entirely at fault in Trayvon’s death, on every possible level.
}}} there is no way that a gun in your household can be used in self defense because of the time and distance to be crossed when an emergency happens.
…and thence the real goal:
“Well, if you can’t use it for self-defense, then why do you need a gun at all?”
It would be improper to suggest one might still use it on an over-reaching government official, as the Founder’s suggested in justifying the Second Amendment.
}}} As someone who was bullied in high school I suspect there was some very effective bullying going on. I have a sense that teachers are often afraid of those doing the bullying, leaving the targets totally defenseless mentally.
I am someone who was the obvious target for bullies — well above average (but not “scary” high) IQ, socially inept, different way of looking at the world, etc. — I will state that, until it was seen in 80s movies, I literally had never heard of a “Wedgie”.
This is because they generally did not bully me, because I was raised to stand up for myself. Bullies tended to leave me alone as a result, because bullies are cowards — they want victims, not people who fight them. After all, if someone fights them, they might lose.
Oh, I got into fights — I think I was suspended for fighting at least once a year (after all, I “had to do something to invite it” — SMH), every year in school, but my mother stood by me, not them, and I kept defending myself, rather than being cowed by anyone… and those likely to bully me generally knew it… and gave me a wide berth.
So, remember this, parents: Teach your kids to fight back, and you won’t wind up with one who gets pushed so far, so hard, that snapping like this is a likely problem (even if it turns out that that does not apply in this case, it does commonly seem to do so).
Moreover, you’ll have done your part to reduce school bullying from its epidemic modern proportions.
}}} So you’re assuming, based on your own history, there was bad behavior that was covered up? You are stretching there and assuming facts not in evidence, based on your own history.
Neo, my own experience and observations are able to support him.
First off, was the attitude of school counselors in my own youth, which cannot have gotten better, of the notion that, if you are involved in any kind of physical altercation, you clearly “invited it” somehow… which justifies you getting the same punishment.
In one case, I avoided a fight by remaining on the school bus after a kid threatened to start a fight with me when we got off. The bus driver knew what was going on, and dropped me off further away.
Now, I ack, I did taunt the bastard as we drove away, visibly laughing at him.
He ran more than half the length of the school to jump me as I headed to class.
My taunt was used as a justification for giving me the exact same punishment as he received… Which defacto was worse for me, as I cared about my grades and did not find school odious to attend (you generally got zeroes for each day of suspension, and 3 days was usually a letter grade). He, on the other hand, got a 3-day vacation, because he did not give a shit…
Now, as an adult, I will readily ack I should have been punished for the taunting, no real argument. But this kid literally set out to initiate a fight, then, when thwarted, ran -literally- a New York City Block to make sure he got the fight he wanted.
That is an act of INTENTION which certainly deserved FAR FAR more severe punishment than my own action. Giving me detention, or some other rational punishment would have been far far more sensible.
But schools don’t give a damn about JUSTICE, they care about their own tranquility. Which is why they punish people who stand up to bullies, while leaving bullies alone… it’s no skin off their noses.
A second point is the manner of handling of Trayvon Martin’s issues — the school, after finding him in possession of illegal drugs in his locker for the second time, simply expelled/suspended him indefinitely, thus dumping him into his mother’s hands, and she, feeling unable to handle it, dumped him into the hands of his father (they were separated or divorced, I forget). The father promptly dumped his troubled problem child off in his apartment on Friday night while he went out with his GF. Because, you know, that’s the best way to handle a kid who is on a bad path… ignore them.
If the school had called serious attention to his issues by getting the police involved, forcing the parents to take the problem seriously, the kid might have gone into a suitable program (leaving his record clean), and he might be alive today.
But the school cared a lot more about their record with kids not being “legal issues” than they did about the problem child.
Thirdly, I recall the same issues were applicable with the Parkland Asshole. He should have been in juvie for multiple problem instances, but they resisted doing the needful, and many other kids paid the fatal price for their failure, which, of course, they never, ever needed to consider their part in.
No, Neo, I grant, there may be no evidence of an issue with him, but that does not in any regard mean that there was no issue with him that people did not fully and completely know about — certainly the school and possibly the parents.
That was not the case for either Trayvon or the Parkland Asshole. People knew there was a problem and they ignored it, because, face it, for most people, it does just “go away” — in the sense of not having anyone die on school grounds — as a result of their failure to properly assess the issue.
Until we start taking school officials responsible for their mishandling of “serious problem children”, these incidents will continue to happen.
Oakland County contains a sizeable population of Karens.
Indigo Red:
I am well aware that the mother’s text was not about the killings. Nothing I said indicates that I thought it was. It was about his search for ammunition. She writes “LOL”? That seems extremely odd, although most definitely not criminal on her part. But I doubt that 15-year-old boys are allowed to buy ammunition in Michigan. Apparently, federal law prohibits the sale of ammunition for long guns to anyone under 18 and for handguns to anyone under 21 (see this). So what’s a 15-year-old doing searching for ammunition? That should have made her wonder what was up with this kid, and saying “don’t get caught” is what I’m referring to.
But again, absolutely not a crime on her part. And the way much of the MSM is reporting her text, I believe they want readers to think it was about more than the ammunition, which it was not.
OBloodyHell:
Actually, school counseling has changed a great deal since your youth, unless you’re under thirty, which I assume you are not. Of course, there are individual variations – and the racial “equity” movement means that the rules are different for black students (although in this case the student is white). I know a lot of school counselors and have known them since probably the 1980s, and over the years there has been the growth of zero tolerance for guns (even pretend guns) or threats of violence, as well as the in-school reporting of actual violence. What is done about that is often not much – although sometimes it’s a lot. But if (the white teenager) Crumbley had been acting out or violent, the school would almost certainly have a record of it in this day and age. They say nothing of the sort occurred; at least, that’s what I’ve read so far.
Whether he was bullied is a totally different issue, one I will deal with in a subsequent post.
His lack of any record of trouble is probably the main reason that the counselors (and his parents) accepted his “video game design” explanation, which they absolutely should not have done.
How do you tell a fascination with guns from a normal interest? How do you make yourself certain you’re right when all you have is a couple of hours, cumulatively, of presentations in Professional Development?
Can you be sued for starting something in the mental health path?
How are you sure this kid’s anomie is going to be lethal, instead of like the last hundred cases you’ve seen?
Does adult attention cause a kid to take his temporary case of the sadz more seriously than he otherwise would?
This kids’ warning signs are nowhere near the maximum you hear from a pretty fair number of youngsters who are….actually in trouble, feeling as if they should be in trouble because not being in trouble is sort of rednecky, playing a role to themselves, playing a role to others, seeing how it feels to ….express something or other.
And then the plethora of regulations about what can and cannot be done–teachers are not allowed to check kids’ backpacks–and worrying about starting something which cannot be stopped until a substantial amount of administrative bumf has had to be done, making things worse.
I may have said this before: while in high school, my brother put some local color from All Quiet On The Western Front into a paper–where something like that would have been appropriate. The teacher, not having read the book, missed gigging him for plagiarism. Instead…the kid was seriously disturbed. Called for a meeting with my father. Who explained that Jim was from a family of soldiers and we know this stuff, which happens to be true, actually, according to my father’s experiences.
Teachers are not qualified for this role and very few want to be.
The details of the meeting with parents seem to show adequate attention to the kid—worked on his homework while awaiting his parents’ arrival, no odd demeanor.
The fault, that which would have forestalled this, is the lack of thought, or the reluctance to check the backpack. This would have been illegal and perhaps that was the reluctance, or perhaps nobody thought of it because nobody thinks of it from one year to the next.
Some initiative to break a rule….. And checking a backpack isn’t some horrible intrusion on a kid’s autonomy and person.
Meantime a third party investigation into the school’s role, one way or another, is starting.
In a situation like this, the grief, anger, and despair won’t be satisfied with only two perps outside the actual shooter.
Oh, by the way, that SCOTUS ruling was made in line with the constitutional ban on “cruel and unusual punishment.”
It would have been neither cruel nor unusual to put Kipland Kinkel in front of a firing squad.
As someone who has been around firearms all his life, if only war trophies, BB guns and .22s during his pre HS graduation youth, I cannot understand a parent buying a school kid a semi auto pistol, or any kind of modern handgun for that matter.
What for? It’s not a toy.
Somehow any sense of the seriousness of purpose of these devices seems to have escaped the parents, who appear from the outside – and the mother’s letter – to have enabled what they knew was a long-troubled kid. Enabled him with a shiny new object of power and fascination, and likely, in my opinion, doing so as a way of trying to mollify or “make contact” with him.
You have a defective and weak kid, regarding whom, the mother complained in her letter to Trump, was having trouble with Common Core testing. Everything was not seemingly ok with this kid, prior.
The parents would have done better to buy him exercise equipment and encourage him to drink milk, for God’s sake. That might have done the round faced little bugger some good at least. Not that by the looks of them, that approach would have ever crossed their barely organized minds.
But instead, they get a weak and failing kid a gun as a way of cheering him up as he stews in his losing proposition situation.
The objective virtues or deficits of Common Core, aside, it is clear that this kid was maladjusted to his life and legally responsible parties knew it.
Now, in abstract, that maladjustment may have been totally understandable on an intellectual level: given the social context in which he was placed. And it might be that morally speaking, we live in a shallow, demoralized, brutal dog eat dog, crazy and unfeeling bureaucratic society; full of niche seeking hypocrite functionaries who profit from mass production education systems and who mainly care if their own rice bowls are filled and not how many of their trapped inmates tear at each other or are broken beneath the wheel.
But it still comes down to the fact that the kid should have been pulled from the school; and both his parents and the administrators are at fault for allowing this little murderer to remain where he got that point.
While you’re at it, let’s indict Trayvon’s parents… who were unquestionably, entirely at fault in Trayvon’s death, on every possible level.
Who did you have in mind, his mother, his father, his step-mother, his paternal uncle, his paternal uncle’s wife, or his father’s new gf? All of them had a hand in supervising him. What should they have done that they did not do?
A second point is the manner of handling of Trayvon Martin’s issues — the school, after finding him in possession of illegal drugs in his locker for the second time, simply expelled/suspended him indefinitely, thus dumping him into his mother’s hands, and she, feeling unable to handle it, dumped him into the hands of his father (they were separated or divorced, I forget). The father promptly dumped his troubled problem child off in his apartment on Friday night while he went out with his GF. Because, you know, that’s the best way to handle a kid who is on a bad path… ignore them.
Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin separated and then divorced in 1998 / 99. Tracy Martin was in 2011-12 separated from his 2d wife, Alicia Stanley, who had put the most sweat equity into Trayvon over the previous 14 years. Tracy Martin was employed as a long-haul trucker and in early 2012 billeted with his new gf, Brandi Greene. Sybrina Fulton, Alicia Stanley, and Tracy Martin’s brother and sister-in-law were resident in greater Miami. Brandi Greene lived in a townhouse complex in a suburb of Orlando. Sybrina Fulton had a falling out with her son in early 2012 and put him on a bus to Orlando. He was billeted with his father in Brandi Greene’s townhouse. The domestic situations of his father, of Brandi Greene and her son, and of Trayvon himself were quite protean at the time. NB, Tracy Martin had received custody of Trayvon when he and SF separated. It was atypical for him to be at his mother’s. (Alicia Stanley later estimated SF had him about 15% of the time. People who watched question-and-answer sessions with SF remarked that she did not have the granular knowledge of her son’s tastes and habits that mothers usually do).
Tracy Martin was aware his son was a problem and was dismayed by it. When he discovered that morning that his son hadn’t returned home the previous night, he immediately called juvenile hall.
By the way. I agree with Neo that there is no obvious statutory violation to justify charging the parents.
Nor, admittedly, have I looked for one.
But although it is or might have been a matter of civil rather than criminal law, it seems to me that there was clearly tortious behavior on the part of the parents according to traditional sensibilities.
What remedy that might afford the damaged parties in this day and age is anyone’s guess.
We see the legal principles of hundreds of years standing falling before our eyes as they are scythed down for bureaucratic and managerial convenience. The statutory removal of the primordial right to resist unlawful arrest; the disappearance of privately brought prosecutions; the disappearance of cause in divorce actions, and on and on: responsibility sacrificed on the altar of unconditional inclusion, the managerial convenience of the sinecured class, and the emotional cravings of the wards of that class … No wonder this society and the people in it are so effed up.
DNW wrote: “We see the legal principles of hundreds of years standing falling before our eyes …”
Really nice sentence.
DNW
If the kid had been pulled from school, there would likely have been no shooting. Thus, it would look like overkill.
Keep in mind that eccentric behavior is protected as personal freedom. He didn’t look any more like a murderer than any other kid with the sadz. My kids went through high school with a bunch of different types of classmates, only one of whom got into trouble before graduating. Later got a mixed life–married, kids, rough crowd, death by OD. But when I coached him, he was a good kid. His parents, both el ed principals, couldn’t keep straight who was to pick him up from practice and, if one or the other attended a game, it was with a newspaper. They were divorced.
kip Kinkel’s father was a high school counselor who thought a gun would cheer up his son.
As to parents being responsible, once you start, why stop with mom and dad? Need more perps to assuage the grief. Can always spread the amorphous “responsible” thingy further and further. The number of people who DIDN”T do something is pretty large.
My judgment, to the extent it counts for anything, is that taking the initiative to check the kid’s backpack and take the heat if nothing were found was where the inflection point (is that the right use of the term?) surfaced. Everything else was pretty much routine for kids acting as if they were in trouble.
I had a friend in high school who was fanatically interested in guns. My father said the guy practically salivated when discussing guns. Never caused a hint of trouble. No idea what the school thought, but he never said anything about interactions with the admin.
He got hold of a rusted, inoperable 20mm Hispano-Suiza aircraft auto cannon. Was going to restore it. No point to it; you couldn’t get good 20mm ammo for less than gold, so….. No ATF descending on his garage, folks not in prison, nobody hurt,
Point is false positives.
As regards the tort law system I brought up?
Well, because he is their legal ward, not the grandparents’ or neighbors’. And because one could make an argument that having irresponsibly introduced something akin to an attractive and inherently dangerous nuisance with specific regard to a presumably unstable, (but as yet unproven as such) ward, they bear as much responsibility as anyone who is wilfully negligent in keeping a dangerous pet, or a wild bull.
Now, to the best of my recollection from legal history classes, strict liability has retreated from its application to individuals somewhat.
If your bull is not properly penned and crashes its way onto another’s property to gore a child to death, you will probably not be hanged nowadays. At least not by the forces of the law. Nor will the animal be declared “bane” and placed at your disposal.
But even nowadays, I think, if it could be shown that the kid was unstable, then a case could be made that the parents were wilfully negligent in enabling the homicides.
Now to this point, I have no such information regarding the youth’s condition; just an unsettling indication that a mother who wrote to Trump regarding her son’s constant struggles with the academic regime in place, undoubtedly had some reason to be alert to broader issues with him.
But, when it comes to a civil action, I see a reasonable prospect of a cause. Unless there are statutory exemptions regarding parents and wards, or previous case law rejecting such actions.
And for all I know at this point, there might be.
DNW:
I have seen nothing about the kid giving evidence to parents or other adults of any unusual instability until the drawings on the day of the shooting. As for a letter from the mother to Trump, all I have seen is a note praising his defense of the end amendment. Could you give a link to what you’re referring to?
Richard Aubrey:
Actually, it would be standard operating procedure to pull a kid from school who wrote notes like that. What is unusual is to not pull him.
Long discussion about this on the VivaBarnes Sunday livestream last night.
I saw Nate the Lawyer’s video, which is mostly a reshowing of the Prosecutor’s press conference on the events leading up to the shooting and the rational for charging the parents. In my opinion, there is only two damning items, which are both text messages from the mom to the son. And before I get to them, I’ll say neither suggest a crime.
Much of the Prosecutors discussion describes lawful activities. The father purchased the firearm from a store after filing the appropriate ATF paperwork. The parents happily spent time taking their child to a firing range to learn how to use the firearm appropriately. The son was happy with his gift. None of those talking points by the Prosecutor, even in context, suggests activity to harm others. This includes the son looking for ammunition while at school, or the mom’s “LOL, I’m not mad at you, I just need to teach you not to get caught”. It’s damning that she suggests not getting caught, but again, not a crime.
Then there are the events the day of but prior to the shooting. I’m ok with school taking action based on the graphics and words from the shooter. I don’t know the law requiring counseling within 48 hours, but unless that law also states the child must be taken home by the parents; I don’t see the crime with letting the child stay. Nor do I understand the emphasis by the Prosecutor that the parent’s “failed to ask [their son] about the gun” and “failed to inspect his backpack”. Yeah, so did the school. Factually, both the school and parents agreed to let the shooter return to class. If one or the other parties disagreed, how was he allowed to return to the classroom?
Finally, there are the reactions by the parents to news of the shooting. The father’s behavior is appropriate. He checks to see if the gun is missing, discovers it is, and calls 9-11. I don’t see any crime by the father. The mom’s text message is damning, but not criminal to me unless they have more evidence. The mom texting “don’t do it”, suggests awareness the son may do something. It also suggests that she doesn’t support the act the son may do. The Prosecutor would need to convince me that “it” was shooting people and then both parties would need to provide a story of what the mom knew about “it”.
DNW.
When there are FOUR DEAD CHILDREN!!!!!, neither the mob nor the law is going to stop at the parents. They may be stopped…but not until they’ve performed enough displacement and signaling of righteous anger and grief.
In addition, some of the reference is to the situation(s) in Chicago where actual, biological connections and time on task in child raising are not clear.
Neo, pulling the kid after some writings like that may be in the procedures manual, but actually starting the procedure takes a bit of moral courage, considering the reax of the parents, the possibility of legal action (“you’re calling my kid crazy!!!”),contemplating the future of somebody who has a nutcase watch in his transcript, so forth. In addition, there are probably, in any educator’s experience, any number of similar but maybe not so graphic, or maybe so graphic and where do you draw the line?
I’d put a capital F for fail in not checking the backpack, law or none. Every thing else is fuzzy.
I do Meals on Wheels. We’re not supposed to enter a client’s home under any circumstances unless she says something like, “Put it on the table by the door.” Not if we suspect something’s wrong. Nope. I never do. Uh uh. Not me. Would never do that. Must be somebody else’s size 14 New Balance tracks in the rug. What are they going to do to me?
Going to seem lame in court…”I’m not allowed to check a student’s backpack,”
Here is the VivaBarnes discussion about the charging of the parents. 30 minutes long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JVKGIYKqcQ
Griffin:
I already watched that. Barnes basically is in agreement with me on the law, the school’s responsibility, and the outrageous charging of the parents. However, I was surprised to see that he made a number of factual errors about the kid. He did not seem to know about the “designing a video game” excuse, and he seemed to think (or imply, anyway) that there was some prior evidence of disturbance on the part of the kid.There was none that I’ve found so far, nor does Barnes cite his sources for that. I think he may just be referring to what happened right before the shooting, when the school called the parents in about the drawing.
Leland:
The issue is WHEN did the mom text “don’t do it,” and what was the “it.” Was it after she heard of a shooting? Was it after the school conference but before the shooting? I’ve not yet read any articles that explain the context. Have you seen one?
neo,
Yes, I felt the same as you on that Barnes was right on the big picture but a little shaky on the details and he seemed to want to blame the school yet totally absolve the parents and of course Viva always has problems on gun issues largely because of his Canadian/Quebec background.
My overall point on this is unless there is more info I don’t think anybody else should be criminally charged for the deaths. Civilly is a much much different story of course.
There was more to it than praise of the Second Amendment. https://www.the-sun.com/news/4190727/ethan-crumbley-mom-letter-trump-school-shooting/
The paper says that that was five years ago.
Ace developed “SASS”, or Situational Autism Simulation Syndrome” That is, you catch Trump in a metaphor, pretend he meant it literally and By God, we got him now, the demonstrated liar!
Don’t go all SASS on “designing a video game”. I used to kill slow time in class trying to figure out how to make a rocket. Air intakes for extra something or other. How to get from one orbit to another–was a fan of Heinlein’s juvies. Crappy line drawings on notebook paper. If I’d had the wherewithal, I’d probably have actually done something I was doodling about.
Maybe the kid was scratching out what he’d like a video game to do. If he called that “designing”, do we call the guys with the jackets which are strait? Get out the polygraph? Or understand what he’s actually doing? IOW, not an item demanding immediate action.
Richard Aubrey:
I believe you misunderstand my point. Of course I’m not saying “I’m designing a video game” should have raised a red flag.” It was a great excuse, very smart, and it worked to lower the red flag.
But it should not have. As I said in an earlier comment, school counselors and counselors in general are required to take such drawings very seriously indeed and to not accept such excuses. The drawings and statements are a huge red flag and require removal from school for a time, and if necessary the teenager should have been evaluated by a psychiatrist and of course the backpack, etc., should have been searched. Apparently he also had social media posts that could have been accessed.
Those drawings and stuff like “help me” should not have been shrugged off in the sense that he never should have been allowed back in a classroom that day. That’s not 20/20 hindsight, that’s school policy in the school systems with which I’m most familiar.
DNW:
Probably half the parents in the country are mad at Common Core. That’s an academic problem – from 5 years ago – and no indication whatsoever of the sort of behavioral red flag we’re talking about here.
She even mentions that the teachers hate teaching Common Core. As I said, this is garden variety stuff and no indication of any propensity to violence or disturbance on the part of the kid, or any particular mental health issues at all.
I think this kid was a sociopath who presented as very together and yet was extremely disturbed in the way of sociopaths. I have seen nothing to indicate otherwise, although I’m open to revising my opinion if I see reason to do so.
Click on some of the links. Apparently they habitually enjoyed a night out at the bar as the kid was growing up; relying on the slogan that “Eight is Enough” … old enough that is, for a kid to take care of himself home alone.
Now, that is not evidence that they committed a proximate crime in this shooting, but it goes to their character and his development.
And given privacy laws for department of social services interventions and minors in school, there is damn little chance we will ever get a indubitable picture of the motivations and actions of these parents … apart from what cash register receipts and time stamps might tell us.
Not necessarily unbiased, but a friend of the mother called child protective service on her too.
They might not be guilty of any obvious statutory violations, but they will sure as hell have a hard time finding unimpeachable character witnesses, should they require them.
https://www.the-sun.com/news/4212204/crumbley-neighbor-warned-child-abuse-authorities-parents/
neo. I was remiss in having left something out. The excuse was likely not the first time they’d heard it, and with kids who were actually killing slow time by figuring out what they’d really like a video game to do. Video game design and redesign and intro of new ones all the time mean people, especially kids, want something different.
Reverting to the WW II theme, a bunch of us would have been hauled away under today’s standards. And it seems to me that, given the WOT with suitable attention, some kids would be interested. Maybe they’re not tuning into it on television, but there is plenty of footage on youtube. So I’d wonder how many times the responsible adults had seen something like this, or perhaps just a couple of degrees less graphic.
Except for the backpack, it’s a gray area, imo.
We have a friend about eleven or twelve. When he was in third grade, he was missing from class. After a search, he was found playing pokemon in the restroom because, as he said, the teacher was boring. Should say he shows signs of genius and sociability. But you NEVER skip class because the teacher is boring. Wonder what went into his file.
At one point, I was having a beer and he had a plastic wine glass with grape juice. “Want some?” he asked. I declined. “Never mix the grain with the grape,” he said.
He could harmlessly get crossways with the ed biz and get something on his file that he doesn’t deserve. I expect some educators could be reluctant to go big and go hard based on a drawing something like they’d seen so many times before. Point is whether the case is so clear cut that responsibility is diamond nd sharp. Failing the backpack is another issue.
Neo; my understanding from the video of the Prosecutor (see link provided earlier), the text from mom “don’t do it” came after the shooting began. from that video, it is unclear if the mom even knew of the shooting. The time stamp is just after the shooting began.
I’m curious from the Frei and Barnes video why they keep speaking of a “troubled child”. I can see that the shooting itself suggests trouble, but I don’t see evidence that this was understood by the parents or school prior to the day of the event. If the parents knew their child had emotional issues, that might provide a different context to the parent’s actions and comments. But without something more than the few hours before the shooting; I’m still not seeing anything worthy of criminal charges to the parent. Frei’s use of the term suggests prior knowledge, as I hear him use it.
Richard Aubrey, I used to have doodles much worse than what you did. I didn’t much doodle past elementary school, but when I was younger, I would draw something like an artillery game (Angry Birds would fit in this genre, but a better example is Worms). My context was WWII, so I’d have US and Nazi symbols (yes swastikas) to differentiate between opposing sides. I can’t recall using too many symbols for people, and if so, only stick figures. I was more interested in the weapons of war; artillery, tanks, aircraft, and naval ships. The Nazi’s didn’t always lose. I can’t recall anyone being the least bit interested in my doodles.
That said, I get neo’s point. The school does fear liability after various other school shootings. While I think there can be an innocent explanation to the drawings, such as “making a video game”; I don’t have any issues with a kid missing a day or two to explain this to a counselor, such that everybody is comfortable with the associated mind at work. I do wonder if there is a law about this in Michigan, yet I also think unless the law or school demands it, there is no reason for parents to just take their kid home because they were asked.
I was once accused of being suicidal in HS. I was pulled from class and spoke with two teachers and counselor about it. I only missed a little bit of class time, but my situation was a bit different. I was part of a district wide “peer-counselor” program, in which kids that had gone a psychological assessment were asked to help other students through depression (theory being they might tell a fellow student before an adult, but that we would then direct them to an adult). The school already knew I wasn’t likely to commit suicide, but they still checked nothing was bothering me that day. The accusation was from a guy trying to get me away from a girl he wanted to date. It backfired on him (no pun intended) and was stupid because I was not interested in dating the girl, but she was fun to talk to at lunch. I don’t recall my parents really even talking to me about it, but I know the school contacted them.
Leland:
Yes, that “troubled child” reference caught my attention, too. I listened to the whole thing, waiting for more details, but they never offered a single one. My guess is that they are not up to speed on the details of this. For example, they never mentioned the video game excuse, which is a big part of the story in my opinion. My guess is that Frei and Barnes uncharacteristically succumbed to media hype. I’ve noticed that almost all the MSM stories frame the thing as “the parents knew prior to the shooting that there were emotional problems,” but the only evidence the articles offer is about the drawings on the very day of the shootings. Nothing prior to that. It’s a subtle move on the part of the MSM to indicate knowledge prior to that day, although I’ve never seen a single indication of any such knowledge.
I think that’s what Frei and Barnes were influenced by.
leland
Not sure my doodles got that detailed, but with a few horizontal strokes of a pencil, you could work up a silhouette of a small deck gun, maybe ca WW I.
I don’t think I’d have drawn a picture of a bleeding body.
I sympathize with the math issue. My wife and I tutored some refugees through their junior year. We could handle everything but the math. Trig scattered into the plane. “go to the math lab”. Didn’t have/need one when I was in school,
Motto of common core, “Leave No Teacher Standing”
“I’ve noticed that almost all the MSM stories frame the thing as “the parents knew prior to the shooting that there were emotional problems,””
I’ve got a friend I talked with last night who kept insisting that this was true, his evidence was that he’d heard it on some conservative talk radio in addition to the MSM. I found it hard to refute except to say I’d seen no real evidence that it was true. Big lie effect in action, just keep repeating the assertion until it becomes conventional wisdom.
The things I did in Elementary school and Jr. High in the 50s early 60s would nowadays have me in counseling and juvie but I grew out of it. BTW I was a latch-key kid and watched over my younger brother from 4th grade on as Dad worked 2nd shift and Mom went back to work in the daytime when my brother started 1st grade.
The actual Michigan law defining the crime of involuntary manslaughter is much narrower than the CNN blurb quoted.
“Involuntary manslaughter is the killing of another WITHOUT malice and unintentionally, but in doing some UNLAWFUL ACT not amounting to a felony nor naturally tending to cause death or great bodily harm, or in NEGLIGENTLY doing some act lawful in itself, or by the NEGLIGENT omission to perform a legal duty.” People v Ryczek, 224 Mich 106, 110; 194 NW 609 (1923).
There is no defining statute in Michigan.
I am a lawyyer but not a Michigan lawyer. I doubt that “mere” negligence is sufficient. More likely a higher degree such as “culpable” negligence is required.
Leaving property which can be used to harm another is NOT negligence at common law. THAT is why many states have carefully drafted access to firearms laws with low penalties to encourage not penalize.
I’m a career criminal prosecutor and this is certainly a head-scratching decision by the Michigan DA.
As to charging the parents with manslaughter, the crime involves taking an action that resulted in death. Normally we would understand this to mean that the accused is the person who actually PEFORMED the act (such as daredevil speeding down the highway in reverse) or inaction (such as for instance failing to notice that you were not feeding your young child enough and that they were starving to death).
Failing to completely secure a firearm in your own home is one thing and possibly simple, civil negligence, but nobody gets shot by the firearm as it sits in your bedside table. The direct and intervening cause is the independent ACTOR who deliberately ACTS to seek out the firearm and makes a personal decision to use it to shoot others.
So I’m wondering if the DA is basing the charge on a theory that the parents were accomplices?? Something like, “Mom, when you go to the CVS this afternoon can I ride along with you? I’m thinking of robbing them at gunpoint.”
“Oh, son, I hope you change your mind but sure, you can come along with me. Make sure to wear gloves.”
As far as charging this 15 year old as an adult, in Pennsylvania a minor is automatically charged as an adult if the charge is first-degree murder. His attorney can make a pre-trial motion asking to remove the case from adult court and remand to the juvenile court system by showing, basically, that the accused doesn’t need to be tried as an adult but instead is “amenable” to the different treatment offered in the juvenile system.