Dec. 3, 2021 "Parents of Michigan boy charged in Oxford school shooting": When I read this article, I thought this school shooting was very predictable and preventable:
James and Jennifer Crumbley committed “egregious” acts, from buying a gun on Black Friday and making it available to Ethan Crumbley to resisting his removal from school when they were summoned a few hours before the shooting, Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald said.
“I expect parents and everyone to have humanity and to step in and stop a potential tragedy,” she said. “The conclusion I draw is that there was absolute reason to believe this individual was dangerous and disturbed.”
Ethan Crumbley, 15, emerged from a bathroom with a gun, shooting students in the hallway, investigators said. He’s charged as an adult with murder, terrorism and other crimes.
Under Michigan law, the involuntary manslaughter charge filed against the parents can be pursued if authorities believe someone contributed to a situation where there was a high chance of harm or death.
Parents in the U.S. are rarely charged in school shootings involving their children, even as most minors get guns from a parent or relative’s house, according to experts.
The couple’s court appearance was pending. It wasn’t immediately known if they had attorneys who could comment.
School officials became concerned about the younger Crumbley on Monday, a day before the shooting, when a teacher saw him searching for ammunition on his phone, McDonald said.
Jennifer Crumbley was contacted and subsequently told her son in a text message: “Lol. I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught,” according to the prosecutor.
On Tuesday, a teacher found a note on Ethan’s desk and took a photo. It was a drawing of a gun pointing at the words, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me,” McDonald said.
There also was a drawing of a bullet, she said, with words above it: “Blood everywhere.”
Between the gun and the bullet was a person who appeared to have been shot twice and is bleeding. He also wrote, “My life is useless” and “The world is dead,” according to the prosecutor.
The school quickly had a meeting with Ethan and his parents, who were told to get him into counseling within 48 hours, McDonald said.
The Crumbleys failed to ask their son about the gun or check his backpack, McDonald said. The teen returned to class and the shooting subsequently occurred.
“The notion that a parent could read those words and also know that their son had access to a deadly weapon that they gave him is unconscionable — it’s criminal,” the prosecutor said.
Jennifer Crumbley texted her son after the shooting, saying, “Ethan, don’t do it,” McDonald said.
James Crumbley called 911 to say that a gun was missing from their home and that Ethan might be the shooter. The gun had been kept in an unlocked drawer in the parents’ bedroom, McDonald said.
Ethan accompanied his father for the gun purchase on Nov. 26 and posted photos of the firearm on social media, saying, “Just got my new beauty today,” McDonald said.
In a video message to the community Thursday, the head of Oxford Community Schools said the high school looks like a “war zone” and won’t be ready for weeks. Superintendent Tim Throne repeatedly complimented students and staff for how they responded to the violence.
He also acknowledged the meeting of Crumbley, the parents and school officials. Throne offered no details but summed it up by saying, "No discipline was warranted.”
McDonald was asked about the decision to keep Crumbley in school.
“Of course, he shouldn’t have gone back to that classroom. ... I believe that is a universal position. I’m not going to chastise or attack, but yeah," she said.
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White reported from Detroit. Associated Press journalist Mike Householder in Detroit and David Eggert in Lansing, Mich., also contributed to this report.
Corey Williams And Ed White, The Associated Press
Dec. 10, 2021 "Florida police say students may have thwarted a potential mass shooting by reporting Snapchat messages": Today I found this article on Yahoo news. This is positive news story:
Florida police on Thursday arrested a student who was allegedly planning a school shooting after two other students reported concerning messages he made on the social media app Snapchat to authorities, thwarting an apparent plot that could have resulted in another tragedy just over a week after the Michigan high school shooting.
The Daytona Beach Police Department detained John Hagins, 19, early Thursday morning to be sent to Volusia County Jail after processing. Hagins is being held without bond and is set to appear before a judge on Friday for an arraignment.
Hagins, a student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, faces a charge of terrorism, a charge for written threats to injure or kill and an attempted first-degree homicide charge, police announced in a press release.
During a news conference, Daytona Beach Police Chief Jakari Young said Hagins referenced the 1999 school shooting at Columbine High School, which left 13 people dead.
The police chief emphasized how important it was that the two students reported Hagins to police before he committed any violence.
"This is the way we combat what's going on in this country right now," Young said. "Most people who carry out shootings like this, somebody knows something. But they usually fail to bring it to the authorities' attention. So the credit truly goes to those two students that stepped up, came forward and brought this to our attention."
Hagins was apparently in danger of failing classes and was cited for a traffic citation a day before the arrest, police said. He had sold his car to purchase a folding rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, they added.
Hagins had also recently posted pictures of his gun and written that he was "finished with his school shopping" on Snapchat, according to Spectrum News in Florida.
Young said Hagins planned to practice his marksmanship at Volusia Top Gun, a shooting range. On Friday, the student was headed to Embry-Riddle for the last day of the semester, when the largest number of students were expected to be be on campus.
"This was all in his plan," Young said, saying Hagins "has already confessed. He may want to claim it was all a joke and he wasn't serious about it, but we don't find anything funny about discussing a mass shooting on campus."
Two students reported the Snapchat messages to campus police, who called the Daytona Beach Police Department. Police arrested Hagins at his apartment on campus around 4:10 a.m. Police found a backpack filled with hundreds of rounds of ammunition and the folding rifle.
The president of the university, Barry Butler, commended both the students and police for their swift action to prevent a possible tragedy in a press release on Friday.
"They saw something, so they said something, and I thank them. Their actions were an outstanding example of our safety culture in action," he said. "Today was a difficult day, but for a moment, let's focus on what went right."
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