There is little precedent for the criminal charges against the parents of Ethan Crumbley, the Michigan teenager who fatally shot four of his high school classmates with a handgun on Tuesday, but prosecutors may have a strong case, legal experts said.
Detroit police said early on Saturday that the parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, had been taken into custody.the couple with involuntary manslaughter for buying their son the weapon as a Christmas gift and ignoring warning signs as late as the day of the shooting. They said Jennifer Crumbley wrote in a text message to her son, "LOL, I'm not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught," after a teacher saw him searching for ammunition on his phone during class.
In one case, in a neighboring Michigan county, the owner of a gun used by a six-year-old to shoot a classmate pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter in 2000. April Zeoli, a professor at the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University, said that prosecution offered the closest parallel to the Crumbleys, and a legal precedent for holding them liable, That case also targeted an adult for failing to secure a gun used by a student in a school shooting.
Eric Ruben, a professor at Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law, said whether prosecutors succeed depends on the facts and on their approach. He said a case focusing on what the Crumbleys did - like buying the gun despite knowing it posed a high risk - is likely stronger than one homing in on what they failed to do.