Prosecutors last week charged the father of an accused school shooter in Georgia with crimes including second-degree murder, a move that comes six months after the parents of a Michigan school shooter were convicted of manslaughter. Will this become the new normal?

Going forward, should we expect the parents of teenaged mass killers to face criminal charges stemming from the actions of their children?

Experts tell me they wouldn't be surprised if that's the case, even as they caution such penalties may do little to deter future shootings and could represent a slippery slope in prosecuting parents based on their children's misdeeds.

Many prosecutors "will view this as a ready-made tool," said Ekow Yankah, a University of Michigan Law School professor who specializes in criminal law.

It's also a tactic that could, at least in theory, extend to non-firearm cases, said Eve Brank, a law and psychology professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln whose research focuses on parental responsibility and the juvenile justice system.

"A car in the hands of someone under the influence" could also be deadly, she said. "Continuing this trend could mean more opportunities to charge parents with a variety of offenses when their children commit crimes."

The question, she said, is how far we should go.

Colin Gray knowingly allowed his son to posses a weapon, the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said at a press conference on Sept. 5. A bureau spokeswoman declined further comment, and Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith did not respond to requests for comment.

The concept of holding parents accountable for the actions of their children is not new. As University of Oregon law professor emerita Leslie Harris noted in a 2008 Utah Law Review article, so-called parental responsibility laws date back more than 100 years in the U.S., starting with a 1903 statute in Colorado that made contributing to the delinquency of a minor a crime.

Other states have experimented with statutes that allow authorities to jail parents if their children are truant from school, or to fine parents if their children are out after curfew or violate other municipal ordinances.

“Anecdotal evidence shows these laws are almost never enforced and soon fall out of favor, only to be rediscovered in a few years,” Harris wrote, adding that empirical evidence showing the measures actually prevent juvenile wrongdoing is scant.

The charges against Colin Gray follow a successful prosecution earlier this year in Michigan. Jurors found the parents of 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley, who in 2021 killed four students at his high school in a Detroit suburb, gave their son a gun and ignored warning signs of violence. Jennifer and James Crumbley were sentenced to between 10 and 15 years in prison for manslaughter.

What sets the Gray and Crumbley prosecutions apart from other parental responsibility cases, such as felony child neglect charges against the mother of a 6-year-old in Virginia whose son took her gun and non-fatally shot his teacher, is that both Colt and Ethan were charged as adults.

To Yankah, there's an “unresolved tension” in prosecuting the teens as legal agents who are individually responsible for their own actions, while also going after their parents. The move cuts against the "bedrock principle of the law that you are not responsible for the actions of others," he said.

As much as parents may be to blame when children do awful things, it's likely not just that they raised a "bad" kid. Perhaps more accurately, it is a child who is struggling with mental illness or substance abuse, or filled with hate and despair — but who is also influenced by peers, school, social media and wider societal forces. The fault for these tragedies, it seems, goes beyond family dysfunction.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/column-why-charging-parents-school-shooters-could-be-slippery-slope-2024-09-11/

Yep, this is a horrible idea.

It logically has to extend to vehicular homicide, theft, rape, etc

Any crime a minor commits.

Yet many major cities do not prosecute actual crimes committed by actual adults, when the person is in custody.

Many of us here pointed that out when it happened the first time and were called idiots

The safe storage law they passed up in Michigan is doing a fine job of locking up people of color.......I didn't know if that was the original intent....but that's what's happening.

If you can prove that the owner of a vehicle allowed a drunk to drive their vehicle, the owners are often charged too. A good example of easy to prove is if the owner is not the driver, but are in the vehicle.

But not the grandmother of the mass murderer of the Waukesha Christmas parade attack.....why wasn't she charged?

If it is a slippery slope, it started 200+ years ago.  If you provide means negligently to someone that commits a crime it has long been a legal possibility you'll go to jail.

I'm on the road with limited internet, but can cite some pre-revolution common law on the issue this weekend if needed.

I'm a pretty hardline gun rights guy, and plenty of members here have seen me with plates and a rifle next to them on fun adventure hikes, plus I've fought the ATF more than once in court.

This is not a hill gun owners should want to die on, the two cases thus far in MI and GA are not out of line with centuries of law.  The exact charges and punishments...maybe a little harsh. I expect the GA one to to turn into manslaughter plea bargains.

Have to deflect from the fact that a lot of these individuals are already on someone’s radar and they dropped the ball.

I would be ok with that as long as parents are allowed to discipline their children any way they like to ensure they don’t have kids that commit crimes.

But, as always in America today, this is a one way street.

And it don’t lead to helping out the citizens…

not going to read a 4 page gd post.  

parent buys the gun?  

parent gives gun to disturbed minor?

parent fails to secure firearms?

disturbed minor uses firearm to kill people.  

I'm in.  charge the parent.  

minors are NOT RESPONSIBLE legally.  

18 years old?  ok, MAYBE, the parent has no liability, if the disturbed NON MINOR is no longer living at home.  

minor, living at home?  with unsecured firearms?  goes on a killing spree with the parent purchased firearm?

charge the parent.  what charges?  meh.  don't gaf.  local ag/prosecutor will get what he can get.  but every parent who buys a gun for a minor had damn well better understand that the parent is on the hook for some liability when their kid goes nuts.  so make sure your kid doesn't go nuts with a firearm.  if that means you don't trust them with firearms and you need to lock everything up, so be it.  but giving a 16 year old free access to weapons?  when they are obviously displaying signs of mental disturbance?  sorry, you get some liability.  dipshit.

A slippery slope that I am good with.  Parents are responsible for everything their minor children do or fail to do.

As with everything else, this will be used as a tool to punish those the state disfavors and not their pets.

They are actually trying to do it already here in Michigan.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/flynn-mackrell-high-speed-michigan-crash-victim-family-wants-teen-driver-mother-charged/

If it was about public safety, they would apply it to the parents of gang members who murder, rob, rape...

Seems pretty clear there's an ulterior motive.

How far down that slope are you willing to go? The nature of slippery slopes is that once you let someone else get you started down one, you don't get to decide when it stops.

So if the "disturbed" kid steals his dad's gun and kills somebody, dad should go to prison for not doing a better job securing his gun. Why should that apply only to his kid? What if it was a disturbed neighbor that stole the gun? Gun owner still should have kept it secured right? Why should you be expected to secure your firearm from your own family, but not from complete strangers?

Back to the kid... What if instead of the gun, junior stole Dad's car and ran somebody down. Dad goes to prison for not securing the car, right? The "allowing a drink to drive" laws generally require proving that the car owner knew the person was drunk and still allowed them to drive at that moment. I've never heard of a law that would allow the charging of a car owner because the drunk took their car without their permission or knowledge because the car owner left the keys out where the drunk could find them. But maybe we should!

What about that knife block on the kitchen counter...you're just going to leave those out there, where any upset kid could grab a 10 inch butcher knife and hurt someone? That's no different than leaving a gun laying around - at least not to the dead kids' parents.

"Not one more inch! Well, except that inch. That one doesn't seem so bad. Go ahead and take that one."

There was a case a few years back where the parents knew their kid was going off the rails, begged for help from authorities, received no help. The left used the kid as an argument for more gun control.

I don't know about that one or maybe I do and I just can't remember.  I will read about it.

Charging single mothers of inner city youth as well?

He wasn’t a minor.

Try harder to prove something that doesn’t exist

This.

Both recent cases where the parents were charged they were 100% liable.

If I was on first jury would have been 100% guilty.

From what I know about the most recent one the dad belongs in prison

Not really the same. They usually don't provide the gun.

I'm not really a fan of this precedent. But regardless not really the same.

Did they buy the gun for the kid who they knew wasn’t mentally well and had a history of making threats?

They charged the father of the adult son that shot up the 4th of July parade in Illinois.

I kind of assumed they were using the emotionally charged cases to establish the legal theory, then they can start using it for soviet  style political prisoner round ups. Oh no you walked around in the capitol, that is a domestic terrorism charge and also the arrest of your family and associates.

Very valid point. Add a pinch of thought crimes and they can lock up anyone for perpetuating wrongthink.

Why? Did he buy the gun for his son? Obviously there’s more to the story.

ETA: As expected. He signed the card to allow him to buy the gun AFTER another relative called police because the kid had made threats.

The dad took a plea deal and did 60 days in Linky jail.

Yes they are. They are responsible for their criminal actions.

This is really pushing on the vicarious liability side where you are responsible for any of your agents.

Either we allow the kids to be responsible for their actions or we don't. If I left my keys out and the 17 year old takes the car and kills someone, should I be charged too?

Yep wait until there is another freak like Dylan Roof, and they try to go after whoever radicalized him online

I think it's legit bullshit and will 100% be used against us.

Let’s charge the parents of ‘trans’ kids with child abuse.

If you gave your drunk 17yo son the keys to the car knowing he was drunk and he killed or injured someone, yes you should be charged. Same as buying a minor child a gun and ammo knowing they're mentally ill or have already been investigated for threatening to shoot up a school. Both of these cases were a good charge for the parents and parent.

It's already BS as they only charge White parents. A majority of school shootings are from Black students and the parent/parents are never charged, it's not ever even considered, let alone get any media coverage. I'm sure many of those are with stolen hand guns but I doubt it's that way in every single case yet there is no interest to go after them. There should never be double standards when it comes to pushing charges.

For that reason I am against going after any parents with kids who do this.

A black woman in VA I think did get charged when her crazy kid shot a teacher  with her gun. How many of these other not changed parents bought their mentality ill kid the gun and ammo they used in the school shooting?

You're certainly more expert in this than my layman ass, but charging with the equivalent crime vs an accessory/ conspiracy/ contributing to delinquency kind of thing seems iffy. Would like to
read more when you do get around to it.

A LOT of you are comparing apples to oranges. Your kid gets a gun from somewhere and shoots someone(s), not your fault. You go out, buy and give your mentality ill kid a gun and ammo and they go out and shoot someone(s) with it, yes you should be charged.

Dad buys gun for a minor child under age 18 that can not legally purchase the gun themselves ------> Child uses that gun to shoot up a school and kill 4 people and injure many others

Seems pretty clear to me. That father is responsible for that gun and what the child does with it until age 18.

I just know that per crime stats, White shooters are actually really rare and yet it seems like every one of them has attempts to charge the parents over it, while the much more common Black school shooter is almost unheard of to hear of a parent charged. I did look up the one you mentioned and you are right that a Black mom was charged so at least there is one case of it. I don't want to see more double standard laws like hate crimes which those are almost always exclusively geared towards Whites and nobody else.

Not always necessarily true.

It's only happening here because the father may have had reasons to suspect his son had made threats.

Without that, it'd be a complete bullshit case. It isn't illegal to give your minor child a rifle.

But if that child is known to have problems obviously it can be different.

In both of these cases the parents were wildly negligent with a kid they would have known has mental illness. The first thing the guy in MI did after he heard about the shooting was go to check if the gun was still there. If reports are to be believed from the latest one it is of the same caliber of willful negligence.  Neither of these were, "Jonny snapped one day out of the blue, stole the parents gun, and killed people." There was a trail of obvious mental illness that was blatantly ignored by the parents. If you provide ready access of a firearm to a minor in that setting, you are taking responsibility for the consequences of that.

According to some in this thread yes.

Suspect? He bought the AR for him after a visit from the police department over threats his son made. The dad had a beer in his hand when he answered the door and talked to the cops. It wasn't a Saturday or Sunday either.

Maybe it's my personal opinion but any parent that buys their kid a gun, any type of gun, and gives them unfettered access to it after knowing they have made threats against life and are a danger to other law abiding citizens should be charged.

The kid needed mental health help but instead the father bought him a gun. It was either he suicides or attempts to suicide by taking other lives. If the kid swallowed the muzzle this wouldn't even be a debate.

They shouldn't be. How can you have complete control someone else's actions ? You can't.

Yes in some cases they might be negligent such as giving a mentally ill child a gun, but in other cases it wasn't their fault.

You would be OK being criminally charged if your son gets in a fight at school and hurts someone away from your influence ?

The cops said they couldn't be sure where the threats came from or who made them. I don't think it was as clear cut as some here make it. Regardless this has already been debated in the main thread, and I'm not trying to rehash it. This father may in fact be guilty, but the idea that a father of a healthy normal kid that hasn't previously made threats or acted violent would automatically be guilty if his kid misuses a gun from the home is ridiculous.

I agree with what you said but form what I've seen that is not the case here. Hopefully the confirmed facts come out. If it was a kid that has/had no history of threats against life that's different.

Most (almost none) parents, white or black, don't buy and give to the kids the guns and ammo they used in the school shooting, especially knowing the kid has mental problems.

I'm not completely convinced this father should be charged but I will agree he was an idiot and it isn't a case that I will lose much sleep over.

The transfer and buying for your child is legal. You knew that right? Do you not have kids?

There are a lot of things a kid can't do, so you LEGALLY do it for them. Are you then 100% responsible as a principal in any offense they commit? I can send my son off to hunt under 18 and with a gun. Scary stuff, right? If he kills some cows, I am financially responsible since he is my child. Charging me for everything he does is ridiculous.

I am not 100% against the chance of any charges, but immediately arresting seems very questionable and sounds more like a knee jerk "look what we did" type of arrest and case. Crumbley was a mess but the school chose not to send him home and allowed him to stay at school. No search either, which seems odd.

The one in MI was even more blatant. Mom and dad absolutely KNEW their 15yo son had mental issues but still bought him a 9mm and ammo.

If this becomes a slippery slope that might actually be an improvement.  Charging and sentencing people based on demographics is already politically correct.

If a person gifts their tarded kid who looks like a school shooter, acts like a school shooter an AR15 for Christmas and then allow him to have access to said rifles and the tarded kid shoots up a school … you get everything you fucking deserve.  Hope the whole family dies in jail.