Michigan shooter's father James Crumbley declines to testify at involuntary manslaughter trial

James Crumbley finally spoke Wednesday at his involuntary manslaughter trial – but only to say that he would not speak further.

Crumbley and his wife Jennifer’s teenage son murdered four students and injured seven other people at Michigan’s Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021. They are the first parents in America to face criminal accountability for a child’s school shooting.

Attorneys delivered their closing arguments Wednesday afternoon.

Jennifer Crumbley was convicted of four counts of involuntary manslaughter. She faces up to 15 years in prison when she’s sentenced April 9. The shooter, Ethan Crumbley, is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The case has largely followed the same lines of the mother's. The prosecution portrayed James Crumbley as a careless and neglectful father who bought a troubled son a gun and failed to secure it, while the defense maintained he never saw any signs that his son was dangerous or mentally ill, and that he did not know of his son’s plans to shoot up his school or that he had access to the gun.

Before resting its case, the prosecution briefly recalled a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives.

Crumbley’s sister was the only defense witness. She said she had not seen or heard anything concerning about her nephew, or had any conversations with her brother where he expressed concern about his son.

After the defense rested its case and the jury left the courtroom for a break, Crumbley swore before the judge that he understood the risks and potential benefits of testifying in his case, had discussed it extensively with his lawyer and understood he had a constitutional right to testify.

Knowing that, he told Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Matthews, “It is my decision to remain silent.”

Matthews asked if he had any questions for her.

“No, I don’t believe so. Thank you, your honor,” he replied.

‘Disregard for a known danger’

Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald invoked the emotions of the terrible day: the faces of parents anxiously searching for their children at the reunification scene, a shot teacher’s “I love you” text to her husband, the assistant principal’s horror.

Four children died that day, she told the jury, because James Crumbley “did nothing.”

“He did nothing,” she said repeatedly.

Though Crumbley told officers he had hidden the gun in an armoire and stored the bullets separately under some jeans, he didn’t mention a lock on the gun.

“He knew (his son) had access to the gun,” McDonald said. “James Crumbley had a disregard for a known danger.”

Crumbley took his son to the shooting range eight times in the year before the shooting, and taught his son how to shoot, McDonald said. And the home had two other firearms, including a gun the shooter once held, texting a friend: “My dad left it out.”

“This is precisely why there is a legal duty in the state of Michigan to prevent your kid from harming himself or somebody else,” McDonald said.

The school wanted the parents to get his son help that morning when they called them in to view a violent and disturbing drawing, she said. The parents left, and the son stayed.

McDonald scoffed at the defense’s anticipated argument that the Crumbleys acted at that moment on the advice of school professionals, who testified they did not see the shooter as a threat and let him return to class.

“He doesn’t get a pass because he doesn’t think the teachers did enough,” she said.

McDonald became visibly incensed as she focused the jury’s attention on the violent drawing. “It says, ‘Help me.’ How many times does he have to say it?” she argued, her voice getting louder. “What does (Crumbley) say? ‘We got to go to work.’”

All the evidence showed, she said, that Crumbley was grossly negligent and trying to shift the blame. He failed not just his son but the dead students and their parents, she concluded.

‘It’s easy to look at things in hindsight’

Defense attorney Mariell Lehman began her closing argument by acknowledging the horrors of Nov. 30, 2021. Amid the nation’s epidemic of gun deaths and mass killings, school shootings, in particular, have devastated communities, she said.

But the charges and allegations against Crumbley, she stressed, were based on “assumptions and hindsight.”

“You saw no evidence that James Crumbley had any knowledge that his son was a danger to anyone ... that his son was planning a shooting, that his son knew where the gun was hidden and that he had handled guns unsupervised,” she said.

A federal agent testified that guns can be stored in a variety of ways, Lehman pointed out, and the shooter wrote in his journal that he didn’t know where his dad hid the gun.

“The prosecution wants you to find that James could foresee that his son was a danger to others and that James acted in a grossly negligent manner or breached a duty that he owed to other people, despite having no information at the time,” Lehman said. “There’s no evidence that James Crumbley had any reason to believe that his son would ever hurt anybody.”

Crumbley didn’t check on the gun after seeing the drawing because “he didn’t know what his son was planning. He didn’t know his son had access to the guns.”

He wasn’t alone in thinking his son was “a good kid,” Lehman said: When the assistant principal saw the shooter, she was surprised because she thought Crumbley’s son was “a sweet kid.”

Crumbley cooperated with police, told them where the gun was stored, shared details about his son’s life and expressed regret, saying, “I wish we would have taken him home,” Lehman said.

“The prosecution is asking you to second-guess the decisions (of James Crumbley),” Lehman said. But, repeating a school counselor’s testimony, “It’s easy to look at things in hindsight.”