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- cross-posted to:
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NOTE: article updated.
A judge sentenced the parents of a Michigan school shooter to at least 10 years in prison Tuesday for failing to take steps that could have prevented a “runaway train” — the killing of four students in 2021.
Jennifer and James Crumbley are the first parents convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting. They were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter after prosecutors presented evidence of an unsecured gun at home and indifference toward the teen’s mental health.
Ethan Crumbley drew dark images of a gun, a bullet and a wounded man on a math assignment, accompanied by despondent phrases. Staff at Oxford High School did not demand that he go home but were surprised when the Crumbleys didn’t volunteer it during a brief meeting.
Later that day, on Nov. 30, 2021, the 15-year-old pulled a handgun from his backpack and began shooting. Ethan, now 17, is serving a life sentence for murder and other crimes.
Personally I think he’s too young to be tried as an adult and it’s obvious that his negligent parents both ignored his cries for help AND encouraged him to use weapons that the law prohibits minors from owning.
But on the other hand, they weren’t the ones that shot up the school, and he does pose a threat to society. If anything this case illustrates how messed up and convoluted the juvenile justice system is.
Not just the juvenile system but the system as a whole. A popular example is the family from the Making A Murderer documentary. The uncle and nephew were borh tried and convicted (separately) of the same murder but in each trial, the prosecutor gave wildly different descriptions of how the murder occurred so that it would better fit the forced, false confession from the nephew in his case and the evidence found at the scene in the other.
I think the PBS documentary on Kip Kinkel is also interesting: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kinkel/
There’s no parents to charge because they were murdered, but the sister wants him to have an option for release after identifying the mental health issues and rehabilitation. But he has 111 years without parole. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kinkel/trial/letter.html
I think these are the types of cases that make liberal leaning folks take a really ironic position. We talk about ending the prison industrial complex, focusing on rehabilitation, etc… But school shooting that in some way is predicated on right wing 2nd amendement rights, let’s lock up as many people as we can for as long as we can, and screw juvenile courts for juveniles while we’re at it.
i don’t see how that is an ironic or contradictory stance?
people who are a threat to themselves or society need to be locked up, monitored and rehabilitated.
simultaneously we need to repair the way we monitor and rehabilitate people because there is a need to do that in society.
Why, what is the liberal option for dealing with a mass murderer in the system that we currently have?