Opinion: Charging the parents in Michigan shooting sends a powerful message

“I have tremendous compassion and empathy for parents who have children struggling. I am, by no means, saying that an active shooter situation should always result in a criminal prosecution against parents. But the facts of this case are so egregious,” McDonald added.

Ethan Crumbley was present when his father purchased a Sig Sauer gun just four days before the shooting, McDonald said. The teenager called the gun “my new beauty” on social media, while his mother referred to the weapon as “his new Christmas present,” according to McDonald. After a teacher said she saw Ethan Crumbley searching ammunition on his phone during class, school officials tried to contact the parents the night before the shooting — but got no response. The mother however, exchanged text messages with her son that day, and wrote, “LOL, I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught,” according to McDonald. When another teacher found a disturbing note on the student’s desk the morning of the shooting, both parents were summoned to school and told to get their son counseling, the prosecutor said. But the parents then left and the boy was sent back to class.

It’s unconscionable that his dad purchased the weapon, and that both parents failed to take the school’s warnings seriously, even though they knew their son had access to a gun, which, according to McDonald, was not securely locked away. As a mother, it’s particularly astonishing to me that another parent would fail to take the proper safety precautions, especially given the circumstances the school officials raised. We as parents, of course, rely on one another to exercise good judgment in order to keep all our children safe. The Crumbleys’ apparent lack of concern for the welfare of the other children in their community is absolutely staggering.