Name: How parents are being held responsible after school shootings
Uploaded: 2026-03-02T21:36:38.000Z
Duration: 13 min 10 s
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Since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, there have been 84 mass shootings at schools across the United States.

Adverbs of manner

Each tragedy is uniquely horrific, but the response from lawmakers has become frustratingly predictable.

Condolences, partisan rhetoric, and ultimately inaction.

Which is why we took note of how some prosecutors are pursuing these cases.

They're not just putting the gunman behind bars.

They're starting to hold the shooter's parents responsible.

For the past two weeks, the father of an accused high school mass shooter has been on trial in Barrow County, Georgia.

Prosecutors there argue that he ignored red flags about his son before the teen shot up apalachee high in 2024, a tragedy that left Ford dead.

He it's not the first time the parent has been put on trial.

Tonight, we'll look at the precedent setting case out of Oxford, Michigan, and

ask whether holding parents accountable is enough to break the cycle of school shooting violence.

Four years ago, on a cold November day, a gunman opened fire at Oxford high school, about 40 miles north of Detroit.

My son's texting me and saying they're shooting it.

A 15 year old student walked the halls armed with a 9 millimeter handgun, killing four schoolmates.

Among them, 16 year old Tate Meir, a star athlete and student mentor.

And 14 year old Hannah St. Juliana, just three months into her freshman year.

Making people laugh is, I think, what most people remember about her.

Tate had a crazy, crazy awesome zest for life.

Juliana now find themselves on a growing list of families whose children have been killed in school shootings.

How are we doing as a country moving towards this?

Yeah, we're going backwards at the moment.

Changes that have been made at legislative level, trying to add more mental health support, more gun control, it's all being reversed.

We don't seem to be wanting to learn from them.

You know, I feel like we need to get in prevention.

Prevention might have protected Oxford High students from this moment.

Prosecutors say the gunman, Ethan Crumbley, had texted his mother on multiple occasions that he saw demons in the family home.

After, he texted that it's time to shoot up the school.

And 24 hours before the attack, his Troubling conduct escalated, according to prosecutors and court testimony.

A teacher emailed administrators that she saw the sophomore looking at different bullets online in class.

A school administrator left a voicemail for the boy's mother.

She didn't respond, but later texted her son, lol.

The next morning, just hours before the shooting, another teacher alerted administrators that the teen's math worksheet had drawings of a gun, a bullet, and

a person bleeding along with the words, the thoughts won't stop.

He was taken to a guidance counselor's office and his parents were called in.

The counselor testified that he recommended therapy and suggested the Crumbleys take their son home.

Two hours later, surveillance video shows the 15 year old walked into the bathroom, pulled a gun out of that backpack, entered the hallway and started shooting.

Police found his journal on the bathroom floor detailing his desire and plan to shoot up his classmates.

Later, investigators learned that just three days before the attack, his mother had taken him to a shooting range with that 9 millimeter handgun which his father had purchased for him as an early Christmas present.

I think there was plenty of red flags there for them to be aware that he was in crisis.

And their answer to that was to go buy him a gun and take him shooting, which there's nothing wrong with that activity in and of itself.

But when that's your answer to a child in crisis, that's a problem.

But this kid was asking for help at every level and he didn't get it and he did something horrible.

He pled guilty to all charges and was sentenced to life in prison.

But prosecutors argued he wasn't the only one to blame.

His parents were each convicted of four counts of involuntary manslaughter for failing to secure the gun and ignoring the warning signs of their son's mental health crisis.

I believe that the following sentences would be in the best interest of justice.

They were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison.

It is the first time that parents anywhere in the country have been held criminally responsible for a mass school shooting committed by their child.

Our society refuses to take significant action to protect our children.

So one of the only places that we can put this back onto are the parents.

What's really unfortunate here is when you want to think about this shooting and accountability.

Only the shooter and the parents have been held accountable.

There's been no accountability at the school.

Should the school bear some responsibility?

I mean, the kid was in a counseling office.

He basically already had a gun in his hand, and the counseling office fumbled it.

Victims lawsuits against school officials and the district have been dismissed, citing Michigan's government immunity laws, which protect public entities and and their employees from being sued.

The law enforcement says, well, we don't want to waste our time doing the investigation because they've got immunity.

They don't want to prosecute or try to prosecute because, well, they're coming up against immunity, so why bother?

I mean, we fought consistently just to have this investigation done.

I imagine that there will be people who say the schools are already stretched thin.

They don't have the ability to do much with a kid who's in trouble.