“Jennifer Crumbley posted about the gun on social media, calling it "his new Christmas present.” And his mother also took him to a shooting range the weekend before the shooting at the school, according to a law enforcement.”
(Carolyn Sung, Shimon Prokupecz, Aya Elamroussi. “Parents of Michigan school shooting suspect arrested after manhunt.” CNN. December 04, 2021.)
New details about the Michigan school shooting of November 30 are revealing more damning clues about the intention of the shooter, 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley.
CNN reported James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of suspect Ethan Crumbley, were arrested early Saturday in Detroit, ending an hours-long search for them after they failed to appear in court on involuntary manslaughter charges in the killings. Law enforcement officials have described the couple as fugitives.
The chief of the Detroit Police Department said a tip led them to the commercial building where they found the parents overnight.
“They appeared to be hiding in the building,” the chief said. He added that they were “aided” in getting access to the building, and charges may be filed as a result.
(Adrienne Vogt. “Parents of Michigan school shooting suspect arrested.” CNN. December 04, 2021.))
The couple was caught by the Detroit Police Department when a business owner called 911 after spotting the suspects' car in their parking lot and Jennifer Crumbley standing next to it, according to the Oakland County Sheriff's Office. She fled the area on foot, but the couple was located in a commercial building after an extensive search of the area. They were taken into custody "without incident," Detroit Police Chief James White said at a 3 a.m. press conference, and were unarmed.
(Emily Shapiro andMark Osborne “Parents of Michigan school shooting suspect plead not guilty, held on $500K bond each.” ABC News. December 04, 2021.)
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald’s office had filed the charges – four counts of involuntary manslaughter – against James and Jennifer Crumbley, the Associated Press reported on Friday, three days after their 15-year-old son allegedly opened fire in the halls of Oxford High School, killing four classmates and wounding seven others.
Both parents pleaded not guilty to the four counts of involuntary manslaughter on Saturday. A judge imposed a $1 million bond for them. So far, the Crumbleys have not cooperated with authorities, nor have they given their son permission to talk with investigators, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said.
The charges are a rarity in the U.S. legal system, which seldom holds parents of school shooters accountable for their child’s actions.
(Tim Stelloh and Minyvonne Burke. “Authorities searching for parents of Michigan school shooting suspect after manslaughter charges.” NBC News. December 03, 2021.)
"They (Nathan's parents) could have stopped it and they had every reason to know he was dangerous.”
– Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald
Incriminating Details
Four days before 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley allegedly opened fire at his Michigan high school, his parents bought him an unusually early Christmas gift: a 9mm Sig Sauer handgun.
The teen accompanied his father, James Crumbley, to buy the gun at Acme Shooting Goods in the small town of Oxford on Friday, November 26. Ethan later posts a photo on Instagram of himself holding the semi-automatic handgun, writing: “Just got my new beauty today. SIG SAUER 9mm. Any questions I will answer.” He includes an emoji of a smiling face with heart eyes.
A photo of the gun believed to have been used in the Oxford High School shooting Tuesday was posted to an Instagram account days before the incident, a law enforcement source with direct knowledge tells CNN.
Then, on Saturday, November 27: Jennifer Crumbley, Ethan’s mother, writes on Instagram that it is a “mom and son day testing out his new Christmas present,” the prosecutor says.
(“Key moments surrounding Michigan high school shootings.” The Associated Press. December 03, 2021.)
Jennifer Crumbley once posted an open letter thanking President-elect Donald Trump for protecting “my right to bear arms,” penned her own Instagram post. “Mom & son day testing out his new Xmas present,” she wrote, Prosecutor McDonald said.
The letter? Shortly after the 2016 election, Jennifer Crumbley posted a missive to Donald Trump in which she claimed she was skipping car insurance payments to hire a tutor for Ethan, blaming the “common core” curriculum mandated in schools. She seethed in the letter about schools where the “kids come from illegal immigrant parents” and “don’t care about learning.”
Here is part of the letter:
“Mr. Trump, I actually love that you are a bad public speaker because that showed sincerity, and humility,” she wrote. “You changed your mind, and you said ‘so what.’ You made the famous ‘grab them in the pussy’ comment, did it offend me? No. I say things all the time that people take the wrong way, do I mean them, not always. Do I agree that you should of [sic] shown your tax returns? No. I don’t care what you do or maybe don’t pay in taxes, I think those are personal and if the Gov’t can lock someone up over $10,000 of unpaid taxes and you slipped on by, then that shows the corruption.”
Crumbley went on to tell Trump that she hoped he would “really uncover the politicians for what I believe they really are,” and that he might “shut down Big Pharma, make health care affordable for me and my MIDDLE CLASS family again.” She was in favor of Trump’s long-promised border wall, and noted that she was “not racist” because her grandfather “came straight off the boat in Italy.”
“As a female and a Realtor, thank you for allowing my right to bear arms,” Jennifer Crumbley wrote. “Allowing me to be protected if I show a home to someone with bad intentions. Thank you for respecting that Amendment.”
The letter was signed: “A hard working Middle Class Law Abiding Citizen who is sick of getting fucked in the ass and would rather be grabbed by the pussy.”
James Crumbley posted a link on Facebook to his wife’s screed, commenting, “My wife can be spot on. Sometimes.”
(Justin Rohrlich and Pilar Melendez. “Teen Gunman’s Parents Vanish After Being Charged for Chilling Behavior.” Daily Beast. December 03, 2021.)
On Monday – November 29, one day before the massacre – a teacher had observed Ethan Crumbley searching for ammunition on his cellphone and alerted school officials. The school tried to contact his mother but could not reach her. Administrators left a voicemail and followed up with an email, but received no response.
McDonald told reporters that Jennifer Crumbley did not contact the school but instead texted her son: "Lol. I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught."
At Crumbley’s arraignment, Oakland County Sheriff’s Lt. Tim Willis told Judge Nancy Carniak that a search of the boy’s home turned up “two separate videos recovered from Ethan’s cellphone made by him Monday night before the incident, wherein he talked about shooting and killing students the next day at Oxford High School.”
On Tuesday – November 30, prior to the shooting – another teacher alerted school officials to a drawing the teacher found on Ethan Crumbley's desk. It included a handgun with the text, “the thoughts won’t stop. Help me,” and a bullet with the words, “blood everywhere.” There were also some laughing emojis, a person who’d been shot, and the words, “my life is useless,” and “the world is dead,” McDonald said.
After the teacher found the drawing, Ethan Crumbley was removed from class and his parents were asked to come down to the school immediately. A counselor showed the parents the drawing but Ethan Crumbley had already altered it and scratched out some of the images and words, according to McDonald.
The Crumbleys failed to ask their son about the gun or check his backpack and “resisted the idea of their son leaving the school at that time,” McDonald said.
(Emily Shapiro andMark Osborne “Parents of Michigan school shooting suspect plead not guilty, held on $500K bond each.” ABC News. December 04, 2021.)
“The notion that a parent could read those words and also know that their son had access to a deadly weapon that they gave him is unconscionable – it’s criminal.”
– Prosecutor Karen McDonald
The parents were told they needed to get Ethan Crumbley into counseling within 48 hours, McDonald said.
“Both James and Jennifer Crumbley failed to ask their son if he had his gun with him or where his gun was located and failed to inspect his backpack,” McDonald said.
They resisted taking Ethan home with them and left the school soon after, she said. Ethan returned to class with the handgun in his backpack.
“The notion that a parent could read those words [in the drawing] and also know that their son had access to a deadly weapon that they gave him is unconscionable. And I think it’s criminal,” McDonald said. She continued:"Instead, James and Jennifer Crumbley left the high school without their son. He was returned to the high school.”
(Justin Rohrlich and Pilar Melendez. “Teen Gunman’s Parents Vanish After Being Charged for Chilling Behavior.” Daily Beast. December 03, 2021.)
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard later said the department was "never informed of either meeting prior to the shooting or that there were any concerns about behavior."
So, ultimately – on the day of the shooting – it was determined that he could go back into class. Tim Throne, superintendent of Michigan’s Oxford Community School, acknowledged Tuesday’s meeting, which took place roughly three hours before Crumbley is accused of fatally shooting four students and wounding 7 other people at the school.
“Yes, this student did have contact with our front office. And yes, his parents were on campus Nov. 30 … this is as much information as we can give you today,” Throne said.
(Oxford superintendent says ‘no discipline warranted’ for accused shooter before attack. Sky News. December 03, 2021.)
Just after lunchtime that day – November 30 at about 12:51 – the sophomore student went into a bathroom with his backpack, then came out into a hallway and started shooting students at random, sending terrified teens ducking for cover and into hiding, police said. Sixteen-year-old Tate Myre, 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana, 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin, and 17-year-old Justin Shilling died. Seven more, including a teacher, were injured.
“At that point he methodically and deliberately walked down the hallway, aiming the firearm at students and firing,” Keast said. “Right outside the bathroom, he began firing, judge. After children started running from the defendant, he continued down the hallway again at a deliberate and methodical pace, pointing and aiming at some classrooms and at students who hadn’t had the opportunity to escape.”
– Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Marc Keast reviewing surveillance video
When news of an active shooter becomes public, Jennifer Crumbley texts her son at 1:22 p.m.: “Ethan don’t do it.” 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.
After the massacre, Oakland County Sheriff’s Lt. Tim Willis said that investigators discovered a journal in Ethan’s backpack, “detailing his desire to shoot up the school, to include murdering students.” Social media accounts showed Ethan practicing with a Sig Sauer handgun identical to the one used in the shooting, Willis told District Court Judge Nancy Carniak.
There are no laws in Michigan requiring gun owners to lock up their weapons and keep them away from children.
Prosecutor McDonald said that evidence showed Ethan Crumbley started planning the attack “well before the incident.”
“This isn’t even a close call,” she said. “This was absolutely premeditated. There is a mountain of digital evidence... we are confident that we can show there was premeditation,” she said.
McDonald added that it was time to get serious about gun safety in the United States.
“If the incident yesterday with four children being murdered and multiple kids being injured is not enough to revisit our gun laws, I don’t know what is,” she said.
Final Reflections
Molly Chakery, in 2019 an 8th-grader at Grand Prairie Fine Arts Academy, understands the country is divided over mental health and gun control. But, "the truth is it's not about right or wrong. It's about the fact that this is going on. And that's wrong," she said.
The issue moved her so much that she wrote a poem to describe the reality of mass shootings after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla. in 2018.
YOU WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND
"You wouldn't
understand,"
I was told after sitting through
Hours and
hours of school
Facts crammed inside my head
Like values in
society
That, "You wouldn't understand."
What don't I
understand?
I swore I understood
That my school was a target
A
target of a cultural epidemic
A target of violence
That, "You
wouldn't understand."
Why wouldn't I
understand
That, at thirteen, my death
Was nothing more than a
statistic
To politicians and law-makers
A political
agenda
That, "You wouldn't understand."
Why can't you
understand
That my activism is not 'just a hobby'
As bullets
ricochet over my dead body
My last words might be, "Shots
fired!"
But all you've fired is, "Thoughts and
prayers."
That, "You wouldn't understand."
When will you
understand
That you've treated a symptom
Of a disease as if the
symptom
Was the disease itself
Like my mental health
That,
"You wouldn't understand."
Why don't you
understand
That I'm willing to take a stand,
But I guess I'm
too young to understand
The hatred that coats society
Like
gloss on a bullet
Or blood on a body
That, "You wouldn't
understand."
I know you
understand
That, with age comes knowledge
But with youth should
also come
Innocence and I only knew the word
'Innocent' because
it was shouted
Over my student body
"They're
innocent!"
That, "You wouldn't understand."
"You'll never
understand!"
Yelled the terrorist that shot
Through my
best friend's body
"You wouldn't understand!"
The
metal detectors and
Clear backpacks as if they were
Effectors
of a million-dollar depression brand
That, "You wouldn't
understand."
© Molly Grace Chakery 2019
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