Jurors found both a school shooter’s father and mother guilty of manslaughter. Here’s what the verdicts mean for parents

A jury of six men and nine women issued a groundbreaking verdict in Michigan Thursday, finding James Crumbley, whose son killed four students at a Michigan high school in 2021, guilty of four involuntary manslaughter counts in a case that experts say could set an important precedent for the extent to which parents of school shooters can be held responsible.

A jury issued a groundbreaking verdict in Michigan Thursday, finding James Crumbley, whose son killed four students at a Michigan high school in 2021, guilty of four involuntary manslaughter counts in a case that experts say could set an important precedent for the extent to which parents of school shooters can be held responsible. Just last month, the shooter’s mother, Jennifer Crumbley, was convicted of the same charges. That made her the first parent ever held directly responsible for a mass shooting committed by their child. “We’re living in a new world now and that new world is a prosecutor saying, ‘if we’re not going to have legislation, if we’re not going to have significant protections, we’re going to take it upon ourselves to use the law in a way that gets accountability to everyone and anyone who could have potentially been involved,’” CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Thursday evening. In arguments during the weeklong trial, prosecutors said James Crumbley was “grossly negligent.” He bought a SIG Sauer 9mm gun for his son four days before the attack, failed to properly secure it, ignored his son’s spiraling mental health and did not take “reasonable care” to prevent foreseeable danger, prosecutors said. They also argued that the shooting could have been prevented if James or Jennifer Crumbley had listened to a school counselor’s recommendation and taken their son out of school the day of the shooting, or if they had mentioned to school employees they had just purchased him a gun. Ethan Crumbley, then 15, used the SIG Sauer 9mm weapon to kill four students and wound six students and a teacher at Oxford High School on November 30, 2021. He was sentenced last year to life in prison without parole.