Facing Charges, Parents of Michigan Shooting Suspect Are Now Fugitives

Since the attack on Columbine High School in 1999, parents of children who commit school shootings have been scrutinized for overlooked warning signs and whether they should be to blame. But they are rarely prosecuted after a school shootout, despite the fact that many underage attackers arm themselves with guns from home.

But in an extraordinary press conference, Ms. McDonald recounted a nearly minute-by-minute missed opportunity to intervene – including how the suspect’s parents were made aware of a disturbing drawing he’d made just hours earlier with violent images and a cry for help Shooting.

“I am by no means saying that an active shooting situation should always result in parental prosecution, but the facts of this case are so egregious,” said McDonald.

“I’m angry as a mom, I’m angry as a prosecutor, I’m angry as a person who lives in this district, I’m angry,” she added. “There were many things that could have been prevented so easily.”

On the morning of the Tuesday shooting, the suspect’s parents received an urgent call to Oxford High School after one of his teachers found an alarming slip of paper he had drawn with pictures of a gun, a person shot, a laughing emoji, and the words, ” Blood everywhere ”and“ The thoughts don’t stop. Help me.”

School officials told parents during the face-to-face meeting that they needed counseling for their son, Ethan, Ms. McDonald said. The teenager’s parents didn’t want their son removed from school that day and didn’t ask him if he had the gun with him or if he was searching the backpack he’d brought to the office, Ms. McDonald said.

“The idea that parents could read these words and also know that their son had access to a deadly weapon that they gave him is unscrupulous and I think it’s criminal,” she said.