Michigan [US], April 10 (ANI): The parents of the teenager who killed four students in a school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, in 2021, were each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison on Tuesday, CNN reported.
They are the first parents to be held criminally responsible for the shootings committed by their children as the US continues to face incidents of gunfire on campus and mass shootings.
The couple has been sentenced weeks after being convicted of manslaughter. James and Jennifer Crumbley, who each had faced up to 15 years in prison, have already been in prison for over two years since their arrest in a Detroit warehouse days after the shooting.
Although James and Jennifer Crumbley were tried separately, however, their sentencing took place together in an Oakland County courtroom, according to a CNN report.
Several family members of the four students killed in the shooting made emotional victim impact statements before the judge announced the sentence.
Justin Shilling’s mother said “the ripple effects of both James and Jennifer’s failures to act” to stop their son from conducting deadly shootings “have devastated us all.” Another victim, Hana St Juliana’s father, said the Crumbleys continue to deflect blame. He further said that his daughter’s death “destroyed a large portion of my very soul.”
In a statement to the court, Jennifer Crumbley offered condolences to the victims and their families. She stated that her previous statement, which she made in her defence during her trial in February, was “completely misunderstood.”
Previously, Jennifer Crumbley had said, “I’ve asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have.” Now, before sentencing, she said if she knew her son was capable of the crimes committed, her answer would have “absolutely been different.”
James Crumbley apologised to the victims, something he said he had not been able to do yet. He said he did not know that his son was planning a shooting in school and requested the judge, “sentence me in a fair way,” CNN reported.
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald requested the judge to exceed the sentencing guidelines for the Crumbleys and consider the “devastating impact of their gross negligence that was foreseeable.”
In separate pre-sentencing memos, the attorneys for the parents requested the court to sentence them to less than five years in prison. Judge Cheryl Matthews said the decision should be a deterrent to try to stop school shootings in the future.
Matthews said, “These convictions confirm repeated acts or lack of acts that could have halted an oncoming runaway train.” The lead prosecutor in James and Jennifer Crumbley’s criminal trials stressed that it was “disappointing” that the parents did not express remorse.
The sentence came after James was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in March in a trial that came weeks after the shooter’s mother was convicted of the same charges. He was convicted of four counts of involuntary manslaughter, a charge that carries a maximum punishment of up to 15 years in prison, which would run concurrently.
Meanwhile, Jennifer Crumbley was found guilty in February of all four counts of involuntary manslaughter in a novel legal case. She had pleaded not guilty to the charges in the mass shooting at Oxford High School. Crumbley’s son, Ethan Crumbley, then 15, killed four students and injured six students and a teacher at Oxford High School on November 30, 2021.
Speaking to reporters after the Crumbleys sentencing, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said, “Feeling bad is natural, and we don’t dispute that they feel bad … that’s not what’s important to victims of crime.”
“What they want and need most of all is remorse, which means acknowledgment of the wrongdoing and some sort of reconciliation or apology for that — and that didn’t come,” she added.
McDonald said she did not think that the case will set a precedent for parents of other school shooters. She stated, “There’s a difference between precedent-setting and rare, and this is really a rare set of facts, it really is,” CNN reported.
The prosecutor said, “Most of us know that you have to exercise reasonable care, at least to prevent other people from the dangers that you know are foreseeable.” She said her team did the “absolute best” they could and the families of victims are aware of it. (ANI)
