School's out (yet again.)

[Gob]

A 15-year-old student opened fire at his Michigan high school on Tuesday, killing three other students and wounding eight other people, authorities say.

Oakland county undersheriff Mike McCabe identified the three students who were killed as a 16-year-old boy and two girls, ages 14 and 17. He said two of the wounded were undergoing surgery as of Tuesday evening and six others were in stable condition. One of the people wounded was a schoolteacher, authorities said.

The suspect’s motives for the attack at Oxford high school in Oxford Township, near Detroit, were not yet known, McCabe said at a news conference.

“A 15-year-old sophomore student of Oxford high school has been taken into custody and the handgun was recovered,” a statement from the sheriff’s office said. “There was no resistance during the arrest and the suspect has asked for a lawyer and has not made any statements as to a motive.”

McCabe said investigators would be looking through social media posts for any evidence of a possible motive. McCabe said the suspect’s parents visited him where he is being held and advised their son not to talk to investigators, as is his right. He said as far as he knows, the suspect had no prior run-ins with law enforcement.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ing-oxford

[Crackpot]

That’s about 30 miles from here. Calling it near Detroit is a bit of a stretch. (It’s closer to Flint). The area is known to be mainly white, affluent, and more Republican than the rest of the county (famously Republican in local elections and Democrat in national elections)

[Crackpot]

Apparently there were rumors going around that something was going to happen to the point that many kids didn’t go in to school

[BoSoxGal]

Michigan high school shooting suspect, 15, appears at court hearing

The 15-year-old boy charged with murder and terrorism for a shooting that killed four fellow students and injured others at a Michigan high school was seen in custody via video during a court hearing on Wednesday afternoon.

He appeared as county authorities revealed that his parents had been summoned to the school hours before the attack – and the county prosecutor spoke out about gun control after it was revealed that the handgun used in the shooting at Oxford high school, about 30 miles north of Detroit, belonged to the suspect’s father.

The suspect, Ethan Crumbley, a sophomore at the school, could be seen sitting behind a table, wearing a face mask against coronavirus, spectacles and what appeared to be a detention-issued protective vest.

Meanwhile, his parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, were looking on via video from a separate location, wearing baseball caps and blue casual tops, as district judge Nancy Carmiak heard from a law enforcement witness, in the courtroom, about the attack at the school on Tuesday afternoon.

Lt Tim Willis of the Oakland county sheriff’s office told the judge that the boy recorded video the night before the violence occurred in which he discussed shooting and killing students.

Willis made the comments shortly before Crumbley was to be arraigned on charges of murder, attempted murder, terrorism causing death and gun crimes.

He has been charged as an adult and was expected to be transferred from child detention to the county jail, according to county sheriff Mike Bouchard at a press conference earlier.

County prosecutor Karen McDonald said the shooting was premeditated, based in part on a “mountain of digital evidence” collected by police.

“This was not just an impulsive act,” McDonald said.

Brouchard said the adult Crumbleys were called to the school on Tuesday “for behavior in the classroom that was concerning”.

Their son remained in school, and the shooting occurred a few hours later.

Bouchard also said investigators believe the gun was already in school.

Meanwhile, McDonald said the shooting should be a wakeup call for new gun laws in a country that has become “desensitized to school shootings,” McDonald told reporters.

“We have to do better,” McDonald said, adding: “How many times does this have to happen? How many times?”

She said the terrorism charge fits.

“What about all the children who ran, screaming, hiding under desks? … Those are victims, too, and so are their families and so is the community,” McDonald said.

She said that charges were being considered against the parents.

“Owning a gun means securing it properly and locking it and keeping the ammunition separate,” she said.

The authorities said all the victims were shot in the school hallways, surveillance video showed.

I like this prosecutor’s approach, at least in part. I don’t agree with charging adolescents as adults - brain science is now definitive as to the underdevelopment of the frontal lobe at that age and all the attendant consequences of that.

But hell yes charge the parents to the fullest extent of the law - it is time for parents and other guardians to start facing felony murder charges when they leave their firearms and ammunition accessible to minors who use said weapons to murder others. We need common sense gun control and one such control should be laws in every state that make it a serious criminal offense with lengthy prison sentences for failure to secure firearms properly.

And yes, school shootings and other mass shootings are a kind of terrorism. Let’s go ahead and pass domestic terrorism laws in every state and at the federal level and let’s include mass shootings in any settings in the definition of domestic terrorism.

[Scooter]

I believe that second degree murder in Michigan encompasses depraved indifference. I would argue that leaving an unsecured weapon where a minor can find it certainly qualifies. Four consecutive terms of 15 years to life for the parents, I could live with that.

[Joe Guy]

I think we need to know more about the father buying the gun. For what reason? Did he own other firearms? The kid can't be that "normal" if he was posting on the internet about shooting people. I agree that the parents have a lot of responsibility in this case.

[Econoline]

[MajGenl.Meade]

The suspect, Ethan Crumbley, a sophomore at the school, could be seen sitting behind a table, wearing a face mask against coronavirus, spectacles and what appeared to be a detention-issued protective vest.

He must have a multi-tasking face mask if it can do all that. One wonders if his surname drove him to it.

[Big RR]

detention-issued protective vest.

Sounds like a pretty dangerous school; when we got detention we just sat there in our street clothes.

[Gob]

Beat me too it.

[Bicycle Bill]

And of course, it's only a matter of time before the gun nuts will come forward to say that this just further proves that the only way to prevent a live-shooter scenario is to make sure that everyone has free and unfettered access to purchase, possess, and carry firearms so that they would be able to 'take out' a threat before it escalates to this level.

That makes about as much sense as saying that the only way to keep from being attacked by a shark at the beach is to have your own shark swimming around out there as protection.

-"BB"-

[Sue U]

That makes about as much sense as saying that the only way to keep from being attacked by a shark at the beach is to have your own shark as protection.

[Scooter]

Parents have been charged with involuntary manslaughter.

[BoSoxGal]

Parents have been charged with involuntary manslaughter.

Thrilled to see this - a prosecutor with real stones. Of course she’s a woman.

[Crackpot]

If half of the stuff being reported is true these parents are in the running for “worst parents ever”. Seriously I think this kids best defense at this point is to point out how bad his parents were. (And I usually find that kind of defense weak at best)

I mean seriously their answer for a kid with emotional problems is to buy him a gun?!

[Crackpot]

Looks like the shitheads are on the run now
https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/be-on ... ol-shooter

[MajGenl.Meade]

BBC

On Friday, Oakland County lead prosecutor Karen McDonald acknowledged that charging parents in a child's alleged crime was highly unusual.

According to her office's investigation, the boy was with his father last Friday when Mr Crumbley bought the firearm believed to have been used in the shooting. A post on the boy's social media later that day showed off his dad's new weapon as "my new beauty", adding a heart emoji.

Just one day before the shooting, a teacher said she saw the boy searching online for ammunition, which prompted a meeting with school officials, Ms McDonald said. After being informed of the incident, Mrs Crumbley texted her son: "LOL I'm not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught." LOL ???!!!

And on Tuesday morning - hours before the rampage - Mr and Mrs Crumbley were called into the school for an urgent meeting after teachers found a note by their son, including several drawings of guns and bloodied people alongside captions like "the thoughts won't stop. Help me", and "blood everywhere". The boy had also written "My life is useless" and "The world is dead", according to the prosecutor.

School officials told the pair they would have to seek counselling for their son.

But the boy's parents did not want him to be removed from school that day, Ms McDonald said, and did not ask him whether he had the gun with him, or search the backpack he brought with him to school.

At 13:22 later that day, Mrs Crumbley texted her son to say: "Ethan, don't do it." Minutes later her husband called police to report his gun was missing, said the prosecutor. But authorities say the boy had already emerged from the school bathroom and opened fire on fellow students.

Ms McDonald said the charges were meant to hold the Crumbleys accountable as well as to send a message about responsible gun ownership. "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, and it's criminal," she said.

The prosecutor had previously noted that, although the gun had been purchased legally, it "seems to have just been freely available" for the child's use. According to her, the suspect took the gun from an unlocked drawer in his parents' bedroom and brought it to school.

[Gob]

Thrilled to see this - a prosecutor with real stones. Of course she’s a woman.

Sexist!!

[Gob]

If half of the stuff being reported is true these parents are in the running for “worst parents ever”.

A man has been jailed for 21 years and his partner for a minimum of 29 years over the torture and killing of his six-year-old son, Arthur Labinjo-Hughes.

Emma Tustin, 32, murdered the boy by causing a fatal head injury at her home in Solihull on 16 June last year.

She photographed him lying on the floor, sending the image to his father Thomas Hughes, 29.

Hughes was convicted of the boy's manslaughter.

Sentencing, Justice Mark Wall QC told Coventry Crown Court the case was "one of the most distressing and disturbing" he had ever dealt with.

He said neither defendant had shown any remorse and their behaviour had been "spiteful and sadistic".

One of the most troubling aspects, he added, was that Tustin's own two children "lived a perfectly happy life in that house" just yards from where Arthur was subjected to unthinkable abuse.

The trial heard Arthur had been poisoned with salt, subjected to regular beatings, denied food and drink and made to stand for hours alone in the hallway.

Jurors were told Tustin carried out a fatal assault by violently shaking the schoolboy and repeatedly banging his head on a hard surface, and while Hughes was not present then, he was culpable in the death as he "encouraged" violence against his son and dealt out beatings.

The judge told the pair "the cruel and inhuman treatment of Arthur was a deliberate decision by you to brush off his cries for help as naughtiness".

He said they had "dehumanised" the boy, adding: "The less human he seemed to be, the more freedom you had to abuse him."

[Crackpot]

They’ve been caught.
https://www.npr.org/2021/12/04/1061465 ... 0xG7kCxunY