Issued on:
The parents of a Michigan teenager accused of murdering four fellow high school students were taken into custody on Saturday, a day after each was charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the campus mass shooting.
Authorities began searching for James and Jennifer Crumbley after Oakland County prosecutors announced the charges on Friday, saying the Crumbleys bought the gun for their son as a Christmas present and then ignored warning signs that may have presaged such a massacre.
Detroit police said in the early hours of Saturday that they had taken the couple into custody.
The police found the two at what “looked like a residential building,” Detroit police spokesman Rudy Harper said.
“We arrested them,” Harper said when asked if the parents turned themselves in.
The couple’s 15-year-old son, Ethan Crumbley, is being held without bail and has been charged as adult on suspicion of carrying out the deadliest U.S. school shooting of 2021 on Tuesday at Oxford High School, about 40 miles (60 km) north of Detroit.
Crumbley’s parents were expected to appear for a Friday afternoon arraignment but stopped responding to calls from their attorneys, according to Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe, prompting a search by the Sheriff’s Fugitive Apprehension Team.
After they failed to appear, the U.S. Marshals Service said it had taken on the case and was joining Oakland County officials in the search.
“The action of fleeing and ignoring their attorney certainly adds weight to the charges,” Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said in a statement on Friday. “They cannot run from their part in this tragedy.”
Even so, lawyers for the parents issued a statement on Friday saying they intended to return for their arraignment.
“They are not fleeing from law enforcement,” attorneys Shannon Smith and Mariell…
Source : france24
