This manhunt didn’t last very long, no dramatic stand off, certainly no spectacular waterfall scene as in The Fugitive, but then they don’t have a waterfall in the industrial area of Detroit where James and Jennifer Crumbley, parents of 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley, now and forever known as the Michigan school shooter, were apprehended. The two were hiding in a basement.
They had left their home in the late afternoon of December 3, after getting $4,000 from an ATM. They turned off their cell phones. Unfortunately, their car was spotted in Detroit and whatever the plan they had to flee was, it got nipped in the bud. These two are not crminal masterminds.
They are going to be forced to deal with this matter, finally. They kept ignoring it, even on the day it happened, when that very morning school counselors ordered the Crumbleys to get their son into counseling within 48 hours. Within four hours the shooting started. Washington Post:
At a Friday news conference, McDonald revealed that teachers had twice raised concerns to the Crumbleys about their son in recent days — once, when he was seen searching for ammunition online during class, and again when a disturbing and violent drawing was found in his desk. In a meeting with school administrators just hours before the shooting Tuesday, the parents “resisted the idea of their son leaving the school” and did not tell school officials that Ethan had access to a gun, McDonald said.
McDonald also read social media posts from the family, describing how Jennifer Crumbley boasted on Facebook that they had bought their son his new Christmas present, a 9mm Sig Sauer SP 2022 pistol, last week. “My new beauty,” Ethan called it on Instagram.
The prosecutor called the parent’s actions “egregious” and “unconscionable,” saying they each face four counts of involuntary manslaughter. “While the shooter was the one who entered the high school and pulled the trigger, there were other individuals who contributed to the events,” McDonald said. […]
David Chipman, a veteran Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent once nominated to lead the agency, said if prosecutors find evidence the shooter’s parents acted unlawfully, the criminal justice system has a duty to act.
“As gun owners, we have a responsibility that when we acquire firearms, we don’t put our neighbors, and in particular their children, at risk,” Chipman said. “If a parent provided their car to an unlicensed teen for a night of drunken joyriding, no one would be shocked if a prosecutor sought to hold the adults accountable.”
It will be interesting to follow this story and see why they fled and what in the world they hoped to accomplish. Once the Wanted posters, the offer of reward money and the photos of the car and license plates went up, they were toast. I guess they had to find that our for themselves.
Well one accomplishment is they can pretty much forget about bail before trial being a proven flight risk.
Let’s hope that charging the parents of these little bastards becomes the rule rather than the exception.
Bail is set at a total of $1 million for the two of them.
The cops are looking for whoever helped them get into that building – it’s a warehouse.
The Crumpleys *wish* they had half the nerve of Bonnie & Clyde. Lame.