Last week, a Michigan teenager killed four of his classmates and wounded seven other people in the halls of his suburban Detroit high school, according to the police. He was arrested and charged with terrorism, four counts of first-degree murder and an array of other crimes.
Then, the county prosecutor took the rare step of filing involuntary manslaughter charges against the suspect’s parents. The prosecutor argued that the parents shared legal responsibility because they had allowed their son access to a handgun while ignoring glaring warnings that he was on the brink of violence.
Should parents ever be held responsible for a child who commits a school shooting? And if so, under what circumstances?
In “Behind the Charges Faced by the Parents of the Michigan Shooting Suspect,” Jack Healy reports:
The gun was an early Christmas gift from his parents: a semiautomatic 9-millimeter Sig Sauer handgun. “My new beauty,” Ethan Crumbley, 15, called it.
The day after Thanksgiving, he and his father had gone together to a Michigan gun shop to buy it. He and his mother spent a day testing out the gun, which was stored unlocked in the parents’ bedroom. On Monday, when a teacher reported seeing their son searching online for ammunition, his mother did not seem alarmed.
“LOL I’m not mad at you,” Jennifer Crumbley texted her son. “You have to learn not to get caught.”
A day later, the authorities say the teenager fatally shot four classmates in the halls of Oxford High School in suburban Detroit, using the handgun his parents had bought for him.
On Friday, Karen D. McDonald, the Oakland County prosecutor, laid out those and other chilling details as she took the rare step of filing involuntary manslaughter charges against the suspect’s parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley.
Students, read the entire article, then consider the following:
The parents of children who commit school shootings are rarely held criminally responsible, even though many underage attackers use guns from home. Do you think parents should be held responsible more often when their child gets a gun from home? Why or why not?
Many states, including Michigan, do not have laws requiring guns to be locked away. However, according to the article, “gun control advocates say that lax gun storage leads to suicides, accidental deaths and intentional school shootings.” Should there be more state laws that regulate gun storage and children’s access to weapons across the U.S.? Why or why not?
Based on the details you read in the article, do you think the parents of the 15-year-old who is accused in the school shooting at Oxford High School should have been charged with involuntary manslaughter? (Involuntary manslaughter usually refers to the crime of unintentionally killing another human out of criminal negligence or recklessness.) Why or why not?
Do you think the charges that the prosecution filed against the parents — and the media attention this case has received — might prevent school shootings in the future? Why or why not?
Before the shooting, officials at Oxford High School met with the 15-year-old and his parents, informing them that he needed to begin counseling within 48 hours. But his parents resisted bringing him home, and administrators allowed him to stay in school. Shortly after, the student fatally shot four students, according to the prosecutor. To what degree, if any, should the school be held legally responsible for the tragedy?
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Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
