THE awful tragedy of yet another school shooting in the US took centre stage last week, in a landmark verdict handed down by the courts.

For the first time since these horrific shootings began, the mother of the 15-year-old boy who shot 11 of his schoolmates, killing four, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

The shooting took place at the Oxford High School in Michigan in November 2021 and Ethan Crumbley, now 17 is serving life in prison for the killings. His mother, Jennifer, was found guilty of allowing him to have a gun and ignoring signs that he was mentally disturbed.

According to BBC News, prosecutors at the trial presented evidence that the young man “had wanted mental health help and complained of hallucinations, but said his parents did not get him treatment”. However, his mother contended that she did not think her son had mental health problems.

Further, on the morning of the shooting the parents allegedly cut short a meeting about “a disturbing drawing” their son had done, opting to go back to work and declining to take the boy back home. School officials too failed to check his backpack, which contained the gun.

Evidence was produced by prosecutors to show that Mrs. Crumbley, prior to this school meeting, had expressed to a friend the fear that her son would do “something dumb.”
In her defence, the boy’s mother blamed her husband, who will face similar charges in a separate trial, for presenting their son with the gun, saying she did not “feel comfortable” being responsible for the purchase and left her husband to deal with it.

While we, in this country, have never experienced school shootings, there are nonetheless two important lessons to be learned from this awful incident and its repercussions.

First and foremost is the fact that the parents have been held culpable for the actions of their son and face ‘jail time’ as a result.

Judgement has already been passed down in the case of the mother, who has been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, each carrying a maximum sentence of 15 years.
The BBC News stated that, “The question at the heart of the trial was whether the mother could have foreseen and prevented the deadly crime.” The verdict indicates that the jury clearly felt that she could.

And this is portentous for parents, both at home and abroad, whose children carry out acts of violence on school grounds. There has been a spate of such incidents in schools here, where teachers have been attacked by parents and students alike. The ruling could well ‘open the door’ for legislators around the world to begin holding parents accountable for violent acts perpetrated by their children and placing them before the courts.

Secondly, it serves as a warning that mental health problems in our children should not be ignored, for there is a very real danger that the result could be harm to others or possibly even to themselves.

In this case, the young man had actually complained of a mental health condition and his parents did nothing, despite the fact that his mother seemed to sense that something was indeed wrong and that her son was on the verge of ‘acting out’. His actions turned out to be deadly.

I can only, once again, urge parents to take note of their children’s behaviour and seek professional help should they see any signs of mental instability.