Negligent homicide
Parents of a shooter in the USA have to be in custody
Judge Cheryl Matthews presides over the sentencing of the accused parents of a gunman. photo
© Carlos Osorio/AP/dpa
Deadly school shootings are a sad part of everyday life in the USA. In one case, the parents of an underage shooter have to go to prison for the first time.
For the first time in the In the USA, the parents of a teenager who carried out a massacre at a school were sentenced to prison for manslaughter. It’s about the case of a teenager who shot four students at a school in the US state of Michigan in 2021.
The judge in charge in Michigan announced that his mother and father were each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison. The parents were found guilty in separate proceedings a few weeks ago. Now the sentence was announced.
The murder weapon was a gift
It is the first time in the United States that parents of a shooter have been convicted on the grounds of personal responsibility for such a crime. The murder weapon was a gift from his parents to their then 15-year-old son, which he used to commit the murders shortly afterwards.
Shortly before the sentence was announced, relatives of the four young people who died in the attack spoke in the courtroom. The mother of a 17-year-old who was killed said through tears that she wished she had died instead of her daughter. She accused the convicts of having completely failed as parents and of bringing terrible suffering to other families. The mother of another victim complained that the perpetrator’s parents could have prevented the tragedy.
Serious allegations were made against the teenager’s parents after the crime because they had bought the murder weapon and given their underage son access to it. They are also said to have ignored warnings from the boy’s school environment.
The parents were brought before court in separate proceedings. The son had pleaded guilty to all 24 charges. Last year he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. He did not testify in the trials against his parents.
The case once again brought the question of parents’ responsibility for their children’s actions into focus. Although fathers and mothers have sometimes been held responsible for negligent behavior in the past, this case marked the first time that parents of an underage shooter were found guilty of negligent homicide.