A jury found James Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter late Thursday over his failure to prevent his teenage son from killing four fellow students and wounding seven others in Michigan’s deadliest school shooting.
Mr. Crumbley and his wife, Jennifer Crumbley, who was found guilty on identical charges in a separate trial last month, are the first parents in the country to be directly charged for the deaths caused by their child in a mass shooting.
Their prosecutions were seen as part of a national effort to hold some parents responsible for enabling deadly violence by their children. In the Crumbleys’ trials, “the prosecution here found a successful playbook,” said Mark D. Chutkow, a lawyer and former federal prosecutor in Michigan.
Prosecutors argued that the Crumbleys ignored warning signs about the massacre, painting Ms. Crumbley as a detached and negligent mother, and accusing Mr. Crumbley of failing to secure the gun used in the shooting.
“James Crumbley was presented with the easiest, most glaring opportunities to prevent the deaths of these four students,” Karen McDonald, the prosecutor in Oakland County, said in closing arguments on Wednesday. “And he did nothing.”
Oakland County prosecutors charged the Crumbleys three days after the Nov. 30, 2021, shooting that killed Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Justin Shilling, 17; and Hana St. Juliana, 14.
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