In a precedent-setting move, the prosecutor who successfully argued the first case against parents of a school shooter has offered counsel to the prosecutor handling the recent Georgia high school shooting.
Karen McDonald, the Oakland County prosecutor, made history in 2021 when she prosecuted the parents of Ethan Robert Crumbley, the Oxford High School shooter. The Crumbleys had provided their son with the firearm he later used in a deadly rampage, killing four students and injuring seven others, including a teacher.
This case bears a chilling resemblance to the recent Apalachee High School shooting, where 14-year-old Colt Gray allegedly used a rifle given to him by his father, Colin, to kill four people and wound nine others. McDonald's successful conviction of Jennifer and James Crumbley, Ethan's parents, in relation to the Oxford High School shooting, set a legal precedent.
According to Fox News, McDonald acknowledged the difficulty of securing a conviction in such cases. "Its not easy to obtain a conviction on [this set of] facts," McDonald told FOX 2 Detroit. "Its a gross negligence standard for involuntary manslaughter in Michigan, and it shouldnt be easy. It should be rare very rare." She also recognized that the idea of holding parents accountable for their children's actions in court is not universally accepted. "Its not lost on me that there was not a wave of support or acceptance of the charges when they were announced," she said. "But I knew looking at all the evidence that we had, that is not released to the public, I knew that you dont get to walk away from that sort of egregious behavior when it was reasonably foreseeable that your kid was going to hurt himself or somebody else." Her primary advice to the prosecutors in the Apalachee shooting trials against Colt and Colin Gray is to "do the right thing and have courage."
Among the victims of Wednesday's shooting were two students and two teachers from Apalachee High School. Colt Gray is facing trial as an adult on four charges of felony murder. His father, Colin Gray, 54, has been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder, and eight counts of cruelty to children. Georgia is one of 42 states, along with Washington, D.C., that hold parents liable for their children's criminal actions. The office of Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald has yet to respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
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