James Crumbley: Father of Michigan school gunman faces trial for son's mass shooting

Prosecutors say Mr Crumbley had multiple opportunities to prevent his son's shooting

Prosecutors have accused the father of the Michigan teenager who killed four students at his school of being negligent for ignoring his son's mental health and buying him a gun.

James Crumbley is charged with involuntary manslaughter over his son's mass shooting at Oxford High School.

Mr Crumbley did not know what his son was going to do, his attorneys argued during opening statements in the trial.

His wife, Jennifer Crumbley, was convicted of manslaughter last month.

Mr Crumbley, 47, has pleaded not guilty to four counts of involuntary manslaughter in the 30 November 2021 mass shooting.

During opening arguments on Thursday, attorneys for Mr Crumbley said he did not have a duty to protect other people from his son, nor did he know what Ethan was planning.

"You will not hear that James Crumbley knew what his son was going to do," defence attorney Mariell Lehman said. "You will not hear that James Crumbley even suspected that his son was a danger."

Officials also announced that Mr Crumbley's phone privileges from the jail would be curtailed after he was caught making threatening statements. They did not elaborate on what threats he had been making.

The case marks the first time parents have been charged with manslaughter over their child's role in a shooting.

• When parents get the blame for a child's mass shooting

Their son Ethan, 15 years old at the time, killed fellow students Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and Justin Shilling, 17. He is serving a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Jennifer Crumbley, meanwhile, is facing up to 60 years in prison after a jury last month found her guilty on four counts of manslaughter for failing to stop her son from carrying out the deadly shooting. She will be sentenced next month.

During Mr Crumbley's trial on Thursday, prosecutors said Mr Crumbley had several opportunities to prevent the shooting, including getting his son help and taking him home from school.

The shooting "didn't just happen out of the blue", Oakland County prosecutor Marc Keast said. "That nightmare was preventable, and it was foreseeable."

Prosecutors called two witnesses to the stand, including a teacher injured in the shooting and Oxford police detective Edward Wagrowski.

Mr Wagrowski revealed that on the morning of the shooting, Mr Crumbley did not start his work as a DoorDash driver until 11:00 EST (16:00 GMT), despite telling school staff earlier in the day that he could not take his son home that morning because of work.

The parents had been called to the school because they found disturbing drawings from Ethan. After they would not take him home, school officials released him back to class with a gun in his backpack. He started shooting hours later.

In the hours after the meeting, Mr Crumbley drove past his home multiple times while doing deliveries, never once stopping to check that his son's gun was still there, prosecutors argued.

School officials had also asked the Crumbleys to get their son mental health treatment, but the police detective said Mr Crumbley had made no immediate effort to look into a list of counsellors the school suggested.

For the investigation, Mr Wagrowski reviewed text messages between James and Jennifer leading up to the shooting discussing their son's mental health.

In one text, Mr Crumbley wrote to his wife: "Dude. Chill. He is fine. AND I am trying to [expletive] work."

Prosecutors say the Crumbleys gifted Ethan a weapon just days before the shooting and did not properly store it. They showed jurors pictures of a lock for the weapon still in its packaging.

They also showed a text Ethan Crumbley had sent a friend a month before the shooting with a video of him holding a gun and saying: "My dad left it out so I thought, 'Why not' lol."

During the first week of the trial, jurors also heard emotional testimony from teacher Molly Darnell, who Ethan shot in the arm before she barricaded herself.

She said she saw blood going down her arm as she texted her husband: "I love you. Active shooter".

"He was aiming to kill me," she said.

Like his wife, Mr Crumbley could also face 60 years behind bars if convicted.