Mass Shooting in Michigan High School

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Apparently the school advised the parents that their son had written a note that included
- a picture of a gun
- The thoughts won't stop, help me
- blood everywhere
- my life is useless

And what did the parents do? they bought him this for christmas



No wonder i) they are being charged with involuntary manslaughter and ii) they did a runner

As discussed earlier, the note was discovered just hours before the shootings.

I second the perspective of this family lawyer - starting at 8:27

The parents have been captured,
https://www.news.com.au/world/north-ame ... 41b9523054

Two more dangerous MAGAs taken from the street. If only the police did the same with the Jan 6 rioters

Mine did, but I was a bit older than that, my half siblings had rifles at that age though.

That is so cliche that it has to be real, it's like something from a really bad horror movie.

The prosecutor has set up a bit of a contradiction here, as they're charging the kid as an adult, which assumes he's rational and fully culpable for his actions, but then charging the parents, implying that they were negligent in not securing the firearm, which isn't really compatible with the "the kid is fully responsible for his own actions" rationale for charging him as an adult. I don't think they can make those charges stick to the parents, this strikes me as showboating by the prosecutor (unless there's something big I don't know).

Negligence of not securing the firearm is not an issue, as Michigan does not have such a law.

"Some states have laws holding gun owners liable for failing to secure weapons around children, but Michigan does not. That means prosecutors will be relying on traditional criminal law, under which they must prove that the Crumbleys were not merely negligent, but grossly negligent or reckless, the experts said".
https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/ar ... gal-ground

Prosecutor Karen McDonald told a news conference the charges were intended to "send a message: that gun owners have a responsibility".

Despite no such law existing.

So, the prosecutor is making a political statement about gun ownership.

Exactly, which is not what they're supposed to do at all. I really wish we could sue them, but they're even more immune than the cops are.

The parents blew off the school when they were told about concerns about their son. The fact that they apparently did nothing - even being flippant about it - tells me some sort of legal action of some sort should be taken against said parents.
The fact that these wonderful parents (sarcasm alert, I must say, as this is an autism site) fled after withdrawing thousands of dollars, speaks of consciouness of guilt.

No more than the school did; they could have searched the kid if they were really concerned about it, but apparently they also chose not to take this particular warning sign too seriously.

The issue here is that there is no actual law covering what the parent might have done, keeping a pistol in an unlocked drawer in your bedroom with a teen in the house might not be smart or advisable, but it also isn't illegal, let alone rising to the level of reckless negligence required for a manslaughter charge. They certainly could be civilly liable, but seeing as how their entire "getaway fund" was $4K, they might be judgment proof there as well. We'll have to wait and see what they say about the fleeing, their lawyer says they weren't, and the whole arrest warrant thing was so flubbed that the sheriff heard about it from the media before getting the warrant himself, so it's not exactly a shining beacon of competence over there.

The parents went to the school and met with school admin the day of the shootings.

It has been an increasing trend to go after parents for the errors of their teens. I'm not sure how often it's been successful, but parents get charged quite often.

I don't like charging a 15 year old as an adult, but I think the stark difference between the criminal process for underage offenders and those over 18 pushes prosecutors to cross the age line when a crime has been truly devastating to a community. The better answer would probably be to change the youth process to allow a more natural progression of consequences, but that would require the law to define a lot of gray areas, which is complicated and ripe for its own issues.

The mental health of our youth is a whole other can of worms ... As a society, we are not doing well by our kids.

You know that the jury system is one way street, that guilty and not guilty are not equal statements of truth.

Not guilty does not mean innocent; it means the case wasn't proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Guilty is supposed to mean guilty, that the case was proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The fact we have wrongful convictions is obviously a testament to just how imperfect the system works in practice, but the intent was to be sure of guilt before convicting.

The January 6th rioters stayed with their own kind and thus were hidden by each other.

These parents went into inner city Detroit. Looking at their politics, they had no friends there. If these parents had any brains, they would have contacted the rural MAGA survivalists and driven to a mall or other large parking area and been picked up and transported to god knows where. Considering they withdrew $4000 from an ATM (which I don't know how because most banks have daily limits on what you can withdraw unless they had multiple accounts) and had who knows how many guns and what type, they might have been able to get themselves to a situation where it would have been a standoff.