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Jury finds Jennifer Crumbley, the Michigan school shooter’s mother, guilty of manslaughter
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- Title
- Jury deliberations entering 2nd day in trial of Michigan school shooter's mom
- Published
- Feb 6 2024
- Word count
- 594 words
These two paragraphs alone are enough to make me lose any sympathy for her. She ignored her child and continues to dismiss a potential plea for help even now, and then claimed she wouldn't have done anything differently. I feel like if she truly cared or paid attention to her son, she would have thought of a dozen different points where she could have done something differently. What if's are some of the most haunting questions of all in the wake of a tragedy like this.
The detail that gets me was her response to him searching up ammunition at school the day before the shooting (emphasis mine):
That quote was also my first thought. It's such a ridiculous thing to say, I keep just blanking it out. Like, my brain keeps insisting it has to be out of context or made up because that's just such an insane response to the situation.
Even without that quote in this article, her attitude is just so... Uncaring? Callous, maybe, but that doesn't feel right. At the very least she's incredibly negligent, to the point she can't even hide it when in the national spotlight.
The only way I can make sense of it is that she simply did not consider the possibility of her son being a potential school shooter being real. Which is honestly the most relatable thing about her. Who wants to think that thought? She probably thought he was just excited about the gun and looking up things about it.
The real problem is America's nonchalant attitude towards the dangers of gun violence. I think it's actually a bit problematic to make this a personal thing against her, she's the product of this culture and if we're stretching it a bit, a victim. "Personal responsibility" won't solve school shootings which means America and its fetishized individualism can't solve it without getting over itself.
In this specific case, with this specific mother, I disagree that it's just a problem with attitudes towards guns. Even without taking the gun and mass shooting into consideration, this woman absolutely failed as a mother.
I don't say that lightly. When searching up further context, I found this article from 2022 that just lists example after example of them ignoring their child. It outlines that they knew their son was "sadder than usual" and had sent them concerning texts, but they didn't do anything to help and instead spent half the week at their barn. It even alleges they got attorneys for themselves, but not their son.
In this article, people who know her comment on her talking more about herself and her horses than her son. That could just be shock, but with some of the other details, I doubt that. Her thought process is oddly pragmatic, whose first thought after their son committed mass murder is "we need to sell the horses"?
All of this, along with the paragraphs I quoted, just tells me that she didn't care about her son. I don't automatically blame parents for their kids' actions. Sometimes a parent can try everything possible but they can't do anything to help their kid, or they get blindsided. That doesn't seem to be the case here though. They had warning signs and pleas from the school, and didn't seem to even try.
And yet she says she wouldn't have done anything else differently. That is what sticks with me. Any other parent in her shoes would have a million "what if" thoughts and scenarios, a million moments that will forever haunt them with regret for being so blind. She apparently doesn't.
The access to a gun and American gun culture as a whole is a HUGE issue. However, all that did was make the outcome far more tragic and horrific. This woman failed her job as a mother.
As much as I oppose holding parents responsible for the actions of their teenage children on principle, the fact pattern in this case is severe enough for me to break that pattern and say "fuck this woman in particular" when it comes to the legal outcome.
What. What. What.
The mind reels. Can we mandate parenting classes for all expecting parents already?
Hey, can we chat about what this actually means for those who are actually parents?
The US is alone in gun violence and school shootings. Do you think parents around the world also need mandatory parenting classes?
And how many, and to what degree, are parents responsible for the crimes of their children? What percent is that compared to all parents?
And then let's chat about effectiveness.
Some of us actually did take classes, did you know? Some of us read a lot of books on the subject. Some of us are still taking seminars and attending workshops and working with professionals to do the best we can.
Some of us didn't, it's true. And you're wanting to mandate those, I'm sure.
Let's take a look at mandatory education for all kids. How effective is it? Do all kids come through learning the bare minimum they needed to know? What happened to those who fell through the cracks: was the education delivery terrible? Were the kids distracted by other challenges in life? Did they just day dream past the mandates time? How effect is it in eliminating illiteracy? What shall we do with those who didn't pass?
So when you say things like this,
it's painting many tens of millions of people with a very broad stroke, for an idea that probably won't even be effective. So, is it a joke? It's pretty old: I remember making this joke many decades ago along with dead baby jokes.
Is it a suggestion that only those who "pass" a certain criteria be allowed to have children? That's eugenics isn't it.
Is there something else we can do for parents and young people that would be more effective?
It's not a joke. We should mandate parenting education. We can probably alleviate many of our social problems by teaching people to recognize and break generational cycles of trauma and pathology.
There are plenty of parents who don't know the basics of parenting and won't pick up a book on it.
The parallel to parenting is sex. If we think it's worthwhile to teach people about how to have healthy sexual relationships, then it should be worthwhile to teach people how to raise other people.
We teach sex education in schools to an insufficient degree, but we know that it already yields significant benefits in improving sexual/reproductive health and partner communication; and reducing domestic violence, homophobia, gender bullying etc. The fact that 90% of American adults still feel unprepared is, I think, indication that we should have more sex education, not less; and similarly, we should have something for parenting.
Parenting education should cover the basics:
And we mandate education for children, why shouldn't we mandate it for adults? If anything, adults with their realized ability to actually affect the world need it more.
Passing classes should be tied with incentives. People who fail should be mandated to retake them. Truancy should be punished as it is punished for children.
Offering free classes is a great idea, mandating them is draconian and would be a significant overreach. It is not the role of the state to force parents to raise their children in a particular way (with the obvious exceptions like neglect, abuse, etc.). If this is going to be successful, you need to ensure people want to be there, rather than attending by force.
There is more than one way to incentivize the classes. Punitive measures are unlikely to be effective, and in fact would be setting those future children up for a harder existence if their parent is now facing legal issues as the infant arrives. This will disproportionately impact people who are low-income and may be struggling to begin with.
A more effective measure would be to provide free infant supplies, or perhaps a refundable tax credit tied to successful completion of the course. If you have that coupled with flexibility in scheduling to ensure people can actually get to class, people will be much more likely to actually attend and pay attention - because they want to be there and pass.
We mandate classes for all children, for all drivers, for gun owners (in some places), for heavy machinery operators, for hairstylists... what makes bringing a kid into the world something where suddenly any required education is beyond the pale?
Reproduction is a fundamental human right, and any interference with that by the state should require the strictest level of scrutiny and an astronomically high burden of proof as to the necessity of an intervention.
The idea that you'd compare driving, cutting hair, or operating heavy machinery to having a child is laughable.
There's plenty of fundamental human rights that have caveats where people have to engage with governmental systems. The right to education requires that children be vaccinated. Marriage requires registration to be recognized. There's limits on freedom of speech when that speech is harmful. Etc, etc. You're laughing, but you're not actually providing any refutation of my question. What makes procreation so sacrosanct that requiring that people engage with the provided parental education is worthy only of laughter?
Listen, I don't have any interest in debating this with you beyond here. Advocating for restrictions on people's ability to choose to reproduce is a hair's breadth away from advocating eugenics, and it simply isn't worth my time to have a discussion with someone who would seriously entertain those ideas.
That said, there are inherent hierarchies to rights, and a right to reproduction is generally considered to be one of the most foundational because at it's core the right to reproduction is about bodily autonomy and the right to exist.
The rights you listed are not existential, and even then they are generally only restricted when your exercise of those rights infringes on another's rights (e.g. imminent calls for violence). Yes, they are all rights, but they are not equivalent.
I replied elsewhere, but amid all the other bad reasons for this notion, eugenics had completely escaped me. You're absolutely right.
Who's willing to bet their life that the same governors who are willing to let patients die just because the abortion that could save her life "might not be medically necessary" wouldn't look for ways to prevent "unwanted groups" from being able to procreate.
Too many (insert any specific group you like) in your state or city? Want fewer? Want to discourage others like them from coming? Suddenly they just don't make it through the class. Not regularly, not consistently. They'll just keep running into problems.
Sure someone might sue. Someone with money to pay for the lawsuit. And how long will that take? Five years, at least, to spot the trend? Another couple to get the case moving and before a judge to the point of a verdict? And however it goes, appeals will start, so tack on a bunch more years and even more cost.
How much demographic change can be wrought in a decade?
Precisely. The problem is not the idea of a parenting class, but the imbalanced power dynamic that is created by a mandatory class. The curriculum would immediately become a hyper-polarized political football, and whoever determines the pass/fail criteria of the class would instantly find themselves in an incredibly powerful position with direct control over who can be parents.
Do we really want the people who push abstinence-only sex ed, and are generally opposed to the existence of anyone who isn't a straight WASP, determining what parenting methods are deemed as acceptable for everyone?
Requiring parental education is not banning procreation. I haven't said anything about enforcement mechanisms, or punishments for failure to attend classes or anything. You're just jumping all the way to the end of the story and expecting everyone to follow you down that path, yadda yaddaing everything along the way.
I'm deeply anti-eugenics and pro-education. It really seems like plenty of people could do with a more useful education in how to be parents, especially as family networks become more strained, and the opportunity to see how older generations engaged in child rearing while the new parents are old enough to usefully learn from their examples becomes less common. Why not make it standard to teach people how to be parents?
You've jumped in to the middle of a discussion thread that was begun on the premise that there would be punitive measures taken to enforce a mandated parenting class. If you were making a different argument, you should've been more explicit.
Nobody said anything about "banning procreation", as far as I can see. Advocating for a mandatory parenting class as a requirement to have a child is clearly a restriction on reproduction, however, which is the phrasing I used. Any restriction on who can reproduce, however benign it seems on the surface, should not be taken lightly.
A state enforcing compliance with a mandate inherently necessitates the use of force. That can take the direct form of an actual arrest, or a fine that is backed up by the implicit threat of force. If there are truly no repercussions for noncompliance, it is not a mandate, it is a request at best.
I think the difference between reproducing and something like getting an education or driving a car is that reproduction is fundamental human behavior. If you leave a population to their own devices in the wilderness, they won't go to school or drive cars (both of which are provided by society), but they will have sex and get pregnant, just the same as they will sleep, form friendships, etc.
It's easy to attach requirements to something that you give a person. It's much harder — and comes across as far more draconian — to attach requirements to something that people do on their own. This is why people feel more oppressed by limitations on speech (another fundamental feature of human nature) than they do by limitations on, say, practicing law.
I agree with the notion of parenting classes but, to me, this is yet another argument for bringing life skill classes (like cooking and car repair) back into high schools. Parenting classes would fit in perfectly here.
However, a law where pregnant women are required to report their pregnancies to the authorities so that they can be made to attend a special class (which, I presume, they would not get paid for even if it interfered with their jobs or required a lengthy commute)? I think this would feel particularly invasive and unfair.
I agree wholeheartedly that it's a class everyone should get in school. Everyone knowing how to care for the young and vulnerable is something that would be valuable across the board.
I get this is a very sensitive topic and even the idea of mandatory parental classes has me squirming (it opens the can for abuse and discrimination), but on the other I feel like there needs to be something. What that is exactly, I'm not the professional or knowledgeable enough to say, but it would be better than nothing.
There's something called Adverse Childhood Experiences - ACEs that forms the basis of my reasoning for this something.
Those who experience an ACE while growing up end up having health impacts due to the stresses of enduring them. This includes heart problems, substance abuse, and even partaking in risky behaviors. While what can be considered an ACE is broad and includes things out of our control, it paints a pretty stark trend of generational trauma and the scars it leaves. It's a big enough issue where even the CDC thinks it needs to be addressed and there's been several studies showing ACEs are a public health concern.
I can't help but wonder if I or any other child that dealt with a traumatic childhood, that our situations would be different if our parents had taken some sort of class or had resources to deal with their own failings.
Sure, offering classes is fine - most people would benefit from taking a basic class, and society as a whole would likely benefit if more people took said class. I have no objection to that whatsoever, even positively incentivizing it to encourage people to go is great.
What I take issue with is the proposal that there would be:
A) A government mandate to take the class
and
B) That people would be coerced into compliance with the mandate through force and/or punitive legal consequences
I truly wish that every expecting parent in America got one of those boxes like they do. I think in Sweden but functions not only to provide some basic supplies but also as a cradle for the infant. Not even attaching it to classes could make huge difference in the well-being of newborns. If parenting classes, basic ones, were part of sex education in high school or something I wouldn't object. Of course, as long as they were comprehensive, just like the sex education should be
That would be great, and I have no objection to that. The point I was trying to make to the previous commenter was simply that meaningful change is possible only when people want to join you, and that getting a reward is a much stronger incentive to participate than simply avoiding punishment.
Oh absolutely, was not in disagreement, more a "yes and" thing
It's very meme to say "there ought ta be a class!". In the real world, someone has to teach it. Some mayor, or governor, or president, will appoint who selects the people who pick what's taught and by who.
Who decides the curriculum? Who picks the teachers? Who are the teachers? How many classes? How often? What do they cost? Who pays? Is there a dispute procedure? What if you disagree with the curriculum?
What does "failing" the class look like, and what does it mean? Are we going to gatekeep becoming a parent now? What if you have a kid without the class; is the child removed from you? By who? For how long? What if you move states? Are you required to take the new state's class? What if you're traveling; can the state(s) you pass through demand you take a refresher, or even remove your kids from you?
Do you want the shithead running Florida to make you sit there listening to whatever he decided was "important for parents" to be taught? What if it was Abbott in Texas? What if it's a starry eyed militant vegan who considers meat to be murder? Someone who considers raising your voice to your children abuse worthy of arrest? What if it's a hardcore religious adherent? What if it's a militant atheist who considers religion proof of unfitness for child raising?
What if it's Trump?
What would Texas look like ten years from now, twenty, thirty, if they could mandate all the cities' parents had to sit through ideology written by a flaming conservative faction?
Life isn't a video game. Power is usually abused. If not now, by someone.
State, county, and city level boards and committees and departments are already run by cronies, by friends and donors, by people with agendas for people with agendas. And now we're suggesting those people should be able to require parents to sit down and pass tests on the material decided by the state?
I think there are a lot of bad, distracted, or inattentive parents, but that's not something that should permit government to forcibly indoctrinate citizens. Which is what will happen if you can require people to sit through a lifestyle "educational course" like parenting.
I think if nothing else there should be red flag laws which target children. If a child is likely to commit mass murder they should be arrested and their home emptied of guns.
I can't support arresting anyone, but particularly a child, without an actual crime being committed.
There are plenty of intermediate, reasonable, and effective steps that could be taken to intervene if a child is believed to be a danger to themselves/others that are not this extreme.
"Attempted x" and "conspiracy to commit x" are crimes already.
Neither of which are equivalent to "likely to x." Attempting and conspiring are both acts in and of themselves.
"Likely to" is just probable cause to investigate "conspiracy".
No, it isn't. Conspiracy has an actual definition - and it's not "hey, this kid seems weird" or even "this kid seems like they could be dangerous".
Those sentiments are probably sufficient for responsible adults (usually not the police) to appropriately attempt outreach, but on their own they are not enough to arrest someone - nor should they be.
I suppose that depends on how you define it.
The relevant definition is that which is defined by statute in the relevant jurisdiction.
Would be a common sentiment, from the Wikipedia page. So signs of mental distress are not conspiracy. Conspiracy is making definite plans to commit a future crime.
Edit: going to the source for this case:
And
From https://komornlaw.com/conspiracy-is-a-crime/
I'm sorry, I meant how you define "likely to".
A kid who is bullied - or even is a bully - enjoys violent video games including shooters, is socially isolated, and struggles with rage, are all things that may get someone labeled "likely" to commit a school shooting but I'm uncomfortable with them being considered probable cause for a crime. That kid needs help, not cops.
If by "likely to" you mean "has expressed interest in doing" or "appears to be stockpiling guns for", well that's a different matter.
I'm on my phone so I might have lost the plot of the thread or which chain I replied to. 😀
What I was really focusing on is that conspiracy in the criminal sense couldn't be used as a cause of action to arrest someone who had expressed an interest in commiting a crime. There may some other law that allows it based on other criteria, but conspiracy would require plans between two or more persons.
A child that is likely to commit mass murder has not committed any crimes yet, and should be treated as innocent until something happens. The future is inherently uncertain, and arresting people for crimes they have not committed is a recipient for disaster. I forget the title, but there’s a tom cruise movie that uses this as its premise.
Not trying to stick too strongly to my guns, but that movie was about imprisoning people for future crimes - not arresting.
Ehh close enough. I only brought it up because I thought it would be sorta relevant to the topic haha.
Most countries in the world don't have trouble emptying homes of guns even without red flags....
And I would be the first to agree something needs to be done about kids and schools and guns. Even something crazy drastic like maybe no one should have automatic weapons at all. Or making people wait a bit to get their guns. Or stricter laws against allowing children access to guns. Or a million reasonable things every single other country has been able to do. (Shrug)
The trouble with your proposal, which isn't unreasonable honestly, is how to define "likely to commit mass murder": when is it a kid messing around and saying or even writing down edgey nonsense, when is it a legitimate threat? How do we process legitimate tips while guarding against bullying (swatting)? What about discriminatory search and seizure which targets certain socioeconomic groups more than others?
And say a kid is convicted and weapons are gone. Now what. How long until kid can be gifted or "happen upon" another one? It's their legal right to get re-armed.
There are 30 states where a baby or toddler child can legally own a long gun, including an Uzi or an AR 15.
It's so insane i don't know how even good
gumgun control ideas can be passed as a law in America anymore.I can see it being challenged on the basis of free speech, second amendment, and "being a walking red flag still isn't illegal", or just in general rejected as "they're taking our guns!"
To me banning all automatic (and semi-automatic) weapons would not be radical. I think guns are neat, but not neat enough to justify their existence. Those weapons primarily exist as efficient devices for killing humans. They seem like a bad idea from the start.
I like the distinction some European countries make where private gun clubs can store and have facilities for practice with weapons that can't be kept at home.
I also would want some wildlife management experts to contribute to such laws. Many states have rural areas with large herds of dangerous wild pigs. Do people in those areas need automatic or semiautomatic weapons?
What? You think arressting a child for a crime they haven't even committed yet is a good solution? If children, then why not adults? And, how would you determine who is at risk? Because of the behaviors of the parents?
Yes please.
It’s technically an arrest as you’re forcing them to go through an evaluation. But there wouldn’t be any jail time.
Yeah, no thanks.
Giving the police legal authority to arrest someone on a hunch is an awful idea that is ripe for abuse.
Even if there's "no jail time", and I would argue that involuntarily holding someone for an extended evaluation period is functionally equivalent, any arrest is serious and has the potential to destroy someone's life and livelihood in a multitude of ways.
It should require a very high bar to arrest someone and confiscate their property. Anything else gives police far too much power, which will inevitably be misused.
Let us also not forget that she and her husband were on the run after the shooting. She even texted as so. There was a massive manhunt for them - they were listed as fugitives. Some guy noticed their car at an art/industrial center and tipped off the police where they were found bunking down on a mattress on the floor of an artists studio. Like, FOUR days after the shooting.
News Story About It
Makes me wonder if he's being tried as well?
He is, next month.
This is what stands out to me. Being a shit mother or not, her world is pretty much done. She does not need to be "punished" further and it's absurd to think that this lawsuit would convince other parents to be more careful. If your kid actually being a potential school shooter is not motivation enough to not buy him a gun, then the threat of a lawsuit isn't either.
I guess some important lessons can be drawn from the contents of the lawsuit but it's kinda sad that it takes courtroom drama to make it public.
Sue Klebold wrote a book called A Mother’s Reckoning about her son, Dylan Klebold, who was one of the shooters at Columbine High School.
It is a harrowing and devastating book. It is also excellent. Its overall arc and message don’t necessarily directly apply to this specific case (I believe the Crumbley’s are far more at fault for their son’s behavior than she was), but I mention it because there are very few first-hand narratives of what it’s like to be the parent of a school shooter.
It is a very difficult but very valuable read.
Also, in case anyone’s hesitant about supporting her financially, Klebold donates all revenue from the book’s sales to mental health charities because she doesn’t want to be seen as profiting from her situation.
I stumbled upon this New Yorker article a few months ago that is also worth a read, IMO:
What Happens to a School Shooter’s Sister?
That was fascinating thank you. I was able to work with someone found Not Guilty for Reasons of Insanity (NGRI) and his story was a little different - his case wasn't so well covered, he killed one family member - but it was very similar in cause.
At the end of his period in mandatory treatment, you would not have known his history.
I understand why the lawyers in this case didn't go that route, but also, it seems like Kip would have been a strong candidate, especially in the 90s compared to now.
I'm really questioning how wise of a verdict this is.
I don't think anyone who's raising someone who might be a shooter is likely to change their behavior based on the fact that they could be held liable, as so often they don't see themselves as doing anything wrong to begin with.
However if the goal is purely punitive, then if it gives some closure to the victims, I guess this makes sense. I'll have to look at the details when I get a chance as this is an interesting precedent at the very least and I'd like to understand it.
Given the shooter's writings about how his parents wouldn't help him, the texts of him displaying mental illness, the drawings that immediately preceded the incident, and the mom training him in the use of the weapon used in the shooting it seems far more clear than in most cases that there was negligence on the part of the mom that led to this. But you're right that it's unlikely to change anything in most other cases. She even said herself that she couldn't see herself doing anything different. I don't think it's likely to change anyone's actions, but it certainly seems like if we're going to arrest people for manslaughter at all, she's a good candidate.
That said, she's going to get credit for the 2.5 years served, and she may not serve much additional time at all. Sentencing is still to come, so we don't know what additional time she'll serve.
I can see the concern over slippery slope and what is the expectation to understand the need for mental health intervention. But it also seems to really come down to failure to secure the gun, coupled with everything else.
If we can send the message that parents are liable for the things their kids do with unsecured guns in the home, that would be great. Securing a gun is the easiest thing in the world. Police literally give away gun locks. I've never seen a gun store that didn't also sell locks. They are the cheapest part of the purchase. It's the height of negligence to leave guns unsecured or in the possession of a minor.
As a gun owner, I would argue that gun locks are not enough. Most them are pretty shitty and would be defeated by some hand tools. They should really be locked away in a good quality safe.
I agree, and my guns are locked in one of those giant upright safes. I use the gun lock as the example because while it isn't ideal, it is completely trivial, easily affordable compared to the purchase of the guns or ammo, and demonstrate the smallest amount of acceptable effort to secure the gun. If someone hasn't taken at least that step, then it isn't a question of extent or slippery slope, but rather completely negligent.
I'd actually like to see some standards on gun locks given they're a literal safety device and should be treated as such. You can't make an airbag that's half as shit as most gun locks, and there's plenty of examples of cheap and easy to make gunlocks that could be mass produced and wouldn't be total trash.
Yeah, agreed. I buy these metal trigger locks that sandwich the trigger and guard between two metal halves of the lock. But guns often come with shitty cable or plastic locks.
I completely agree about gun's being secured and holding people responsible for not doing it. It is a trivial thing to do and only has upsides.
She had so many opportunities to do the right thing, to listen to the school officials who saw the blatant warning signs but she didn't and four kids were killed. She's being held liable for her negligence. That seems appropriate.
Her behavior was negligent, if not reckless. Somehow I doubt that trend stays contained to child-rearing. From a rehabilitative angle, I think it makes sense to try and correct it in this instance.
Following up on the discussion/court hearing:
Michigan school shooter’s parents sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison for role in attack (Reuters.com)
I can't get archive.is to resolve at the moment or I'd post that link.