Unfair Prosecution
 

Ethan Crumbley, 15, has been arrested and charged with 4 counts of murder in the Michigan school shooting. He will be tried as an adult. Now, his parents have also been arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter, even though school officials also had information about the possibility that the student could commit a violent crime.

Almost every day, you read about murders and other violent crimes being committed by minors in New York, Chicago, and other cities. But, I rarely hear about their parents being arrested in connection with those crimes. I wonder if the parents of Ethan Crumbley are being penalized because they are married and living in a two-parent family situation, and not in a large city. To me, it seems incredibly inequitable for them to be charged with manslaughter.

News reports are not necessarily to be taken at face value , but ones that I have seen suggest its more than him being their son, that things they did and did not do come into play, it will of course be very interesting to see how the different media outlets spin this.

They are innocent until proven guilty, they will have their day in court.

Parents called to school & they refused to take him home, knowing he purchased (& had) a gun. Then the parents were on the run. :ohdear:

Report I read said dad bought the gun, kid took it from unlocked drawer.
Who knows?:shrug:

yeah, i saw that too, but just for a minute, do you think the school had the DUTY to remove him without parental approval? most may say no, but looking @ what the kid wrote & pix he drew, the school itself had the responsibility to remove him without parental approval. they call the cops in most cases you hear about-why not here?

With a tread lightly approach to far too many issues these days, signs of possible problems are ignored for fear of a negative response.

See something say something has unfortunately become offensive in too many instances.....in my opinion.

Think there will be a lot of butt covering and obfuscation before this case gets to trial.
Seems quite a few people dropped the ball somewhere along the line.

but, people did see something and said something. caught the kid looking up ammo on his phone--calls and emails to parents got no answer. mother texted son, lol don't get caught. teacher sees note and takes photo...parents called in and won't take kid home. multiple social media where parents and child refer to it as the child's Christmas present. parents knew gun wasn't in a secure location. the school should have insisted the child be taken for psych eval immediately. so that's on them. but in this case, the evidence clearly supports parents culpability and the fact that they fled and hid only reinforces that. you can play the "what about" game all day regarding murders in Chicago, etc. but in this case there's a digital footprint of their indifference to his problems and access to a gun. and spare me the two family crap. both parents arrested for DUI, father has child support action against him, recently fired from job, wife also wrote bad checks--yeah great "2 parent" family

The culprit of the day!!

It was an early birthday present to the son

Just my opinion, but it seems to me that a responsible owner of a gun would accept the responsibility of keeping the weapon safe and secure from unauthorized use.
I don't know if the charges against the parents will hold up, but I hope they do and that it sets an example for all gun owners (I know most already do this with gun safes or trigger locks, etc.).

On its face it may seem unfair, but think about what its long term benefits might be. We as a society have no idea how to stop these kids from shooting up their schools. Maybe if we charge and severely punish some parents, some future shooters might think twice before they put their parents in severe legal jeopardy. Just a thought.

I don't care if he was raised by iguanas, I don't care if his parents are the head of the local church or have a history of being Nazi death camp guards. The only thing that matters is did those accused of this crime commit this crime. Period.

If these parents had any reason to believe that the gun they apparently thought was a great Christmas gift for their child would present a risk to himself or his community, they had an obligation to all of us to lock it away. The information presented by the cops, who I do not believe tell the truth far too often [see testilying] is that these two adults had reason to believe that their child was dangerous and failed to act. If I know my auto brakes are failing and let you drive my car and you hit a pedestrian because the brakes failed, I am partly or even mostly to blame. I put an instrument of destruction in your hands that you could not reasonably and safely operate.

My problem is with the prosecution of a 15 year old as an adult. He is not an adult. His brain and reasoning are not fully formed. He is clearly at this time a dangerous person but he is Not an adult. We don't let him drive as we recognize his judgment to handle a car is not there yet. We don't let him vote, we don't let him join the army, he cannot sign a contract or agree to have sex with his minister as he is not old enough to be responsible in his decisions. But here, we as a society demand that his failure to use adult judgment be fully punished in the same way as an actual adult would be punished. I have a problem with that.

Brain isn't fully developed until 25.........If we wait until age 25, that's a lot of 18, 20, 22 year old child criminals. :ohdear:

Lots of 15 year olds are driving.