The parents of 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley, charged with shooting and killing four students at his high school in Michigan on Nov. 30, will be tried for involuntary manslaughter, reports the Associated Press. Rochester Hills District Court Judge Julie Nicholson found enough evidence that Jennifer and James Crumbley made the gun used in the shooting available to the teenager and did not intervene when presented with signs of his poor mental health. Prosecutors said the parents gave him the gun as an early Christmas gift.
On the morning of the shooting, school administrators called the parents to the school with concerns about the teen's disturbing drawings depicting gun violence, but they refused to take him home even when the school counselor told them that Ethan presented a danger to himself. Ethan Crumbley is being charged as an adult in the deaths of the four students at Oxford High School. He is being held separately from adult inmates at Oakland County Jail. The teen's defense wants him moved to a juvenile facility, but prosecution say he would pose a threat to inmates. A ruling is expected next week on which facility Ethan Crumbley will be held. His parents are jailed on $500,000 bond. “The element that the prosecution in this case can never prove is that Jennifer Crumbley or James Crumbley knew that their son was going to commit a school shooting,” said Shannon Smith, Jennifer Crumbley's attorney.