A jury in Michigan did not reach a verdict on Monday and will return Tuesday to court, reports the Associated Press.
Jennifer Crumbley is charged with involuntary manslaughter, making her and her husband James Crumbley the first parents in the U.S. to be charged in a mass school shooting committed by their child. Prosecutors said Jennifer Crumbley had a duty under Michigan law to prevent her underage son, Ethan Crumbley, from harming others. She’s accused of failing to secure a gun and ammunition at home and failing to get help for her son’s mental health.
In a journal found by police, Ethan wrote that his parents wouldn’t listen to his pleas for help, leading him to consider violence. and so he had to resort to violence. “I have zero help for my mental problems and it’s causing me to shoot up the ... school,” he wrote. Yet his parents involvement went beyond typical teenage-parent strife, prosecutors argued. On Nov. 30, 2021, Ethan pulled a handgun from his backpack and shot 10 students and a teacher, killing four peers. The gun was the Sig Sauer 9 mm his father, James Crumbley, purchased with him just four days earlier. Jennifer Crumbley took her son to a shooting range that same weekend. Jennifer Crumbley told jurors that it was her husband’s job to keep track of the gun, and said she saw no signs of mental distress in her son.
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