WASHINGTON | The parents of the teenager who opened fire at a northern high school were wanted by police on Friday after being charged with manslaughter for letting their son use a gift gun he killed with four students, a rare decision of the American justice.
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James and Jennifer Crumbley “cannot escape their responsibilities in this tragedy,” said Michael Bouchard, the Sheriff of Oakland County, Michigan in a statement.
“Our fugitive arrest team, the FBI and the US Marshals service are looking for them and we intend to take them into custody soon,” he added.
Their son, Ethan Crumbley, 15, killed four pupils and injured six others as well as a teacher on Tuesday on the grounds of the Oxford school, an act of cold blood which caused trauma in this small town north of Detroit.
AFP
James and Jennifer Crumbley
He “walked into the school and pulled the trigger” but “other people contributed to this event and I intend to hold them to account,” county prosecutor Karen McDonald said. , by announcing the lawsuits against the parents.
The shooter was charged with “terrorist act” and “assassinations”, and faces life imprisonment because he is being prosecuted as an adult. He pleads not guilty but has chosen to remain silent. He is being held in solitary confinement in the county jail in Pontiac.
Shootings remain a recurring scourge in the United States, claiming large numbers of victims in a country where the right to own guns is constitutionally guaranteed. But lawsuits against relatives of their perpetrators are extremely rare.
Christmas gift
James Crumbley had bought the previous Friday, the day of the big “Black Friday” promotions, a Sig Sauer semi-automatic pistol as an early Christmas present for his son.
After the purchase, the teenager posted images of the weapon on social media, calling it “beauty.”
According to the police, he had recorded a video the day before the shooting on his cell phone where he announced his intention to use his weapon in high school, without broadcasting it on the internet.
The next morning, Ethan Crumbley had been summoned with his parents by the school administration, for drawings of a weapon and a bloodied body accompanied by a smiling emoticon, as well as messages evoking the death: “Help me. , my life is useless, the world is dead, blood everywhere, ”said the prosecutor.
“To think that a parent could read these words knowing that their son had access to a lethal weapon he had given them is incomprehensible, and I think it is a crime,” she said.
She also blames the parents for not asking their son where his gun was, which was in his backpack, and for refusing to bring the boy home.
“Inadequate” law
Two hours after the meeting, he came out of the bathroom, gun in hand, methodically progressing through the halls of the school, shooting at high school students and at the doors of the classrooms where the students had barricaded themselves. He fired at least 30 bullets.
According to the police, he had aimed at random, without choosing previously identified victims.
On the news of a high school shooting, Jennifer Crumbley had sent a message to her son, writing “Ethan, do not do it”. Her father had reported the pistol missing from the drawer in which it was stored to the police.
The lawsuits are also a “message to gun owners that they have a responsibility,” said McDonald, denouncing Michigan’s “inadequate” law that does not require a gun to be kept locked up.
The tragedy has created an atmosphere of psychosis in Michigan where authorities are “inundated” with messages of threats against schools.
More than 60 schools have been closed statewide due to “threatening behavior,” according to Oakland County police, adding that most of the threats were bogus.
“There are those who think it’s funny, it isn’t, others think it’s a way to avoid going to class, it isn’t. It’s a crime, ”Sheriff Michael Bouchard said Thursday.
Their authors face 20 years imprisonment for “false terrorist threat”, underlined Karen McDonald.