The parents of Ethan Crumbley, the shooter responsible for the tragic killing of four students at a Michigan high school in November 2021, have filed an appeal against a judge’s order to stand trial for manslaughter, according to recent court filings.
Jennifer and James Crumbley, who are Ethan’s parents, were charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter after prosecutors argued that they provided their son with a firearm and ignored warning signs about his behavior leading up to the shootings.
Earlier this year, the Michigan Appeals Court ruled that the Crumbley parents could be tried, stating that their actions and inactions were closely intertwined with their son’s actions, told ABC News.
The parents have now taken their appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court, as indicated in filings shared by local outlet WXYZ-TV Detroit. Their attorneys argue in the documents that holding parents to such a standard goes against reasonable outcomes and claim that the mass shooting carried out by Ethan Crumbley was not foreseeable.
Ethan was a 15-year-old sophomore when he carried out the attack at Oxford High School in 2021, resulting in the deaths of four individuals and injuries to seven others. He pleaded guilty to terrorism and murder charges last year.
In its March opinion, the Michigan Appeals Court asserted that the shooting was reasonably foreseeable. The court emphasized that this connection existed not only due to the parent-child relationship but also due to evidence showing the defendants’ active involvement in Ethan’s untreated mental state, their provision of the weapon used in the killings, and their refusal to remove him from the situation that directly led to the shootings, as outlined by a three-judge panel.
