Prosecutors charge parents of Michigan school shooting suspect

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by Bowerbird, Dec 3, 2021.

  1. Egoboy

    Egoboy Well-Known Member Donor

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    Clearly not... assuming you were even close to the working definition of the statute....

    SNIP
    Unlike a murder charge, involuntary manslaughter means that a person had no intention of killing another, but due to their careless or reckless actions caused the death of a human being.
    ENDSNIP

    https://www.findlaw.com/state/michigan-law/michigan-involuntary-manslaughter-law.html

    - Bought weapon used - Check
    - Didn't make any real effort to keep it from the shooter - Check
    - Encouraged teen to avoid school concerns - Check
    - Ignored original school contact - Check
    - Ignored request to get teen immediate counseling and remove from school - Check
    - Assumed their son was the shooter during the event - Check

    It's not any one of of these that is careless or reckless enough (except item 5), but it's the overall picture...

    I've said it's a stretch, but it's worth a go here...
     
  2. Hoosier8

    Hoosier8 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You mean when the school brought it up and the school did nothing even though they had the legal right?
     
  3. Hoosier8

    Hoosier8 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No parent wants this for their kid.
     
  4. Egoboy

    Egoboy Well-Known Member Donor

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    Now come the deranged copycat stories...

    https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news...dents/69-7e5c8463-2f26-4ab1-82b4-1dc860c951ee

    https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news...reats/69-b7e7f337-619e-41b3-b053-c3c3b407196d

    Events like this sometimes have unexpected positive benefits.... like exposing closeted nuts in and near our schools... and charging absentee parents...
     
  5. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    if one knowingly aids terrorism sure, I doubt the parents did that here
     
  6. Bastiats libertarians

    Bastiats libertarians Well-Known Member

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    Non of which applies to the situation. The intent of that law is something along the lines of I sell you a weapon knowing your going to use it to rob a bank. I knew you were going to do something that was potentially a safety issue. This situation does not apply. They did not know their kid was going to go on a mass shooting rampage.
     
  7. Bastiats libertarians

    Bastiats libertarians Well-Known Member

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    Its more than a stretch. The prosecution has to prove that the parents either knew or were told by the child that he intended to use that firearm to commit murder. Example: I sell you a gun knowing that you intended to rob a bank and in the process of doing that you kill someone. I lend you a car knowing that your legally blind and you crash into someone and kill them. I lend you my car to drive knowing that your intoxicated. etc.
     
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2021
  8. MJ Davies

    MJ Davies Well-Known Member

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    No, in that situation, it is not unlawful because the school officials retain the right to keep their staff, faculty and students safe. It would only be illegal if they had no reasonable suspicions of him being a threat and just wanted to harass him. It depends on each school board but almost all, if not all, have that policy in place and parent(s) consent to it when enrolling their children at that school. Along with the above, a minor's face CAN'T be shown anywhere without expressed consent from that child's parents. The primary reason is the safety of the child (pedophiles hang around schools and identify kids from yearbooks or photos all the time).

    Personally, I never gave consent for my kids' photos to be taken while they were at school and I never placed or even emailed their photos to anyone ever. I lost all that when my ex kidnapped them in 2017 and their stuff is everywhere now. It's just not that important to me for people to have constant updates and photos of my children. I would rather keep them safe than brag about some game they won. ;-) Ex is an idiot so none of that is taken into consideration.

    The reason the types of searches you are thinking about are illegal is law enforcement is required to tell a person (adult) their rights to remain silent. If they give up that right by speaking or even voluntarily allow the police to search their property, it is admissible. If either of those are NOT done (the reading of one's rights (Miranda) by speaking to the police and/or allowing them to search their property, it is not admissible.

    Along these same lines, when someone calls 911 most municipalities send a police officer and EMT and sometimes the Fire Department depending on whatever the dispatcher deems is appropriate when taking the call. However, if the police show up before EMT, etc., they can perform emergency treatment (ie. Heimlich maneuver or CPA or whatever is required that he or she can do before EMT shows up). Beyond that, the officer can't search the property (even if they are inside), ask the person anything outside of "are you okay until help arrives?" and guard the premises from nosy neighbors and potential looters. The reason is simple as it ties to your question. In a medical emergency, the police searching a property (home and/or vehicle and/or a woman's handbag, etc.) is unlawful as the injured (or dead) person can't give consent. So as to not blurry those lines, police officers can't search a property during a medical emergency. They can't enter a property unless they can see someone inside is in need of immediate help (as described above). It's a conflict of interest.

    A few months before COVID arrived in the US, one of my neighbors collapsed outside and was rushed to the hospital. She had a pet policy contract so management went into her unit to feed her cats while she was in the hospital. Somehow, during the course of her hospital stay, her keys were lost. She was discharged on a weekend so management wasn't here to let her in. I called our after-hours number and was instructed to call the non-emergency number at the police department. An officer showed up (but, again, doesn't have the authority to enter someone's property unless he or she has a reasonable suspicion that someone is in imminent danger) so we had to wait for the paramedics to arrive. They have a master key that will open our security door and a lockbox they can access to open our units. They opened her apartment, the officer looked around just to make sure nobody was hiding somewhere and left. Further, the Fire Department and the EMTs have that master key that opens our security door but the police DO NOT (for all the reasons I've stated above).

    -----------------

    And, back to this case, I am confused about how and why this kid was not suspended the nanosecond his parents refused to take him home and I don't understand why he was not questioned or, at least, sent to the office if school officials had reasonable concerns about his mental state relative to the phone search and drawing. They could have called for a youth officer (most schools have a liaison within the police department) or even a truancy officer. They had a duty to protect ALL their students and somebody dropped the ball on this one. I wouldn't be shocked if nobody on staff is fired and the families of the killed and/or wounded don't file a lawsuit against the school. There simply is no logical reason they didn't do everything they could to get him out of that school until this was resolved.
     
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2021
    Hoosier8 likes this.
  9. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

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    Maybe you should read the newspapers.

    Google "Mother kills daughter" & "Father kills son".

    If the parents were disgusted with their wimpy son, why not buy him a gun so that he can shoot his schoolmates and then the cops will kill him? After all, they wouldn't be held responsible for the deaths and they get to play the role of grieving parents.
     
  10. Hoosier8

    Hoosier8 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Ah, conspiracist.
     
  11. Andrew Jackson

    Andrew Jackson Well-Known Member

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    Exactly.

    The Involuntary Man. Charge is going to turn on how the Jury interprets this (in regards to the Parents not secufing the weapon):

    Created a situation where the risk of great bodily harm or death was very high, knowing that as a result of the defendant's actions he or she knew that serious harm or death would likely result.
     
  12. MJ Davies

    MJ Davies Well-Known Member

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    That is not entirely accurate. The kid didn't have to say anything to either or both parents. As a minor, they are responsible for him and, as such, even the suspicion of him causing harm is enough. He may have had some kind of mental crisis in the past or they discussed his mental health with is pediatrician or he has suspended in the past due to concerns about his mental health. Any reasonable and responsible parent should know their child and clearly they do or his mother wouldn't have texted him "Don't do it."

    I'm hoping beyond hope that if the prosecutor can't make the above stick, they switch gears and charge them with neglect and reckless endangerment of a minor.

    Either they...

    (1) were aware of their kids' mental distress (can't claim ignorance), or
    (2) they weren't aware so they did not get him the help he needed before he snapped.

    They can't have it both ways. If I was a prosecutor, I'd even slap on abandonment since they skipped town without their kid. Idiots abound in this equation.
     
  13. Bastiats libertarians

    Bastiats libertarians Well-Known Member

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    They are fully idiots and are responsible for the damage their kid did. But criminal negligent of manslaughter? Too far. That being said I despise these people for what the have done and hope they are sued for basically everything they own
     
  14. Egoboy

    Egoboy Well-Known Member Donor

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    Yeah... that nonsense changes nothing, but fun stories.... I suggest developing your favorite and submitting it to Hallmark as a Christmas movie...
     
  15. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    I consider you a friend and have great respect for your intellectual arguments so don’t take this the wrong way. :) I’ve always considered that argument (the existence of a thing makes that thing more likely to be used/abused/etc.) to insult the intelligence of both the queried and the querier. Of course I concur the existence of a thing makes it more likely to be abused or cause harm when used improperly. Children don’t drown in the Pacific ocean in Nebraska. If a person has no access to a firearm it’s physically impossible for that person to harm someone with the thing they don’t possess. If all guns went away all gun involved violence would cease. Before the 10th century AD, there were no school shootings or firearm suicides. We can certainly agree on that.

    Now the caveat. Yes, my story was an anecdote. But consider statistics now. For example, Vermont has quite high firearm ownership rates. So do North and South Dakota. But all three have very low gun violence statistics and low to average gun death statistics. So while “more guns” can lead to more deaths/violence it doesn’t always.

    Another example of misplaced correlation/causation is the “good guy with gun” having a bad day scenario. The statistics show concealed carriers commit crime at much lower rates than the general public—even lower than police officers. And Vermont, the state with the third lowest firearm violence rate has had permitless concealed carry…..forever. Again, I’m not making the claim more guns equals less death or violence across the board, I’m showing existence of guns isn’t the only metric in play.

    So, I can agree something must exist to be used nefariously, but the existence of the thing is not necessarily even correlated with nefarious use of the thing. In short, this argument that something must exist to be used nefariously just leads us back to the fact something or many somethings unrelated to mere existence are in play. More on what those things are below.

    We can ignore the rights argument if you prefer. There are other arrows in my quiver. :)

    Building on the question of “does the existence of something make it more likely to be used by mortal man”, should we apply that to every aspect of homicide and suicide? Does the fact the existence of processed foods can lead to violence mean anything? I’m always amazed at the number of threads and posts and media stories about how guns are responsible for homicide and suicide because they are a preferred method by many perpetrators of the two “cides”. In contrast, you never see threads or posts or journalism focusing on something like the effect of diet on ALL violence and suicide, not just the subset of firearm related events. For example, we hear statistics like a gun in the home makes successful suicide 4 times more likely. But when was the last time you saw a thread or post lamenting the fact not eating breakfast makes a kid twice as likely to attempt suicide? Or that kids who drank soda one or more times a day are around 65% more likely to attempt suicide than “non drinkers”? When was the last thread on low soluble fiber diets and subsequent loss of gut microbial diversity being linked to aggression, lack of inhibition, and sub clinical behavioral disorders? People post things to me about pediatricians wanting guns locked up, but never a post about how parents affect a child’s cognitive development and subsequent social behavior by what they feed/don’t feed them. To me, this shows well being of children and society is not the concern. The concern is removing as many firearms from society as possible—even if time and energy would produce more return on investment for individual and societal health if spent on other factors in violence and aggression like nutrition, physical activity, etc. This is one of my main gripes with anti gun advocacy. It’s analogous to discovering a queenless colony and attempting to rectify the situation by removing duplicate eggs from cells. It never addresses the actual problem, just a symptom of the problem(s).



    I remember a couple young ladies several years older than me in our social circle when I was a kid who used procreation as their “occupation”. A new (illegitimate) baby regular as clockwork each time subsidization rates dropped because of age of the last one. I heard more than one comment made about mandatory sterilization after #3 etc. It did upset some taxpayers for sure, my parents included. (Interestingly enough, my parents helped pay for private education for 4 of the one lady’s kids.)

    As someone who’s more voluntarist than anything, I don’t advocate for any authoritarian policy from the state. I suppose abuse and gross negligence warrant removal, but I’ve seen the state mess that up so bad I’m loath to remand all protection to the state either. (My in-laws were foster parents for years. Finally had to stop when a baby they had off and on that kept being sent back to a physically abusive mother by the state finally was killed by her. Pretty much destroyed my MIL). I don’t have all the answers. I just know what we are doing now isn’t working and I think we focus on the wrong problems. Guns in a drawer pale in comparison to destruction of young minds and bodies through improper diet and activity levels and other problems like social media, entertainment, and general attitudes of entitlement/consumerism.

    Thanks for volunteering. Covid had to be terrible for families locked up together who were already having problems. I agree systems approaches are the answer but realize there are sometimes no solutions—especially with unwilling participants. And there’s no way to force “willingness” even if we wanted to.
    I just don’t see why a 15 year old can’t be educated enough on value of human life, finality/ “messiness” of death, and personal responsibility by that age to be trusted with an unsecured firearm in the home. At 16 almost every state/country sends them off behind the wheel of a vehicle. An unsecured firearm seems small potatoes in that context. But then guns to me are not evil/scary. They are just tools that demand respect like any other. Which leads to….

    Since you are a psychologist, what are your thoughts on reactance in relation to teen gun use/obsession? Don’t you think by stigmatizing/prohibiting firearms in real life and simultaneously glorifying them in entertainment we are creating the perfect storm of “forbidden fruit”? This used to be talked about a lot with teen substance abuse/experimentation but I don’t know how that all shook out with research etc. in your line of work. I know even the CDC doesn’t publish a lot on teen suicide methods to avoid copycatting which is well documented. But on firearms it seems as a society we are almost intentionally stigmatizing/prohibiting and simultaneously glorifying to create textbook reactance in young, impressionable, developing minds. It’s not logical to me.
     
  16. flyboy56

    flyboy56 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I say let an investigation determine whether or not the seller of the axe knew what the person was going to do with the axe. Knowing the history of shootings and bullies at school why would parents buy a gun for a child they knew was being bullied if this was the case and I'm guessing the defense lawyer will use this as a defense for the child. But this will not be a defense for the parents. If gun laws can't be changed then something else will have to give. Parents need to be put on notice they are responsible for the child's action up until the age of 18.
     
  17. Hoosier8

    Hoosier8 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So subvert the legal system to appease your anger?
     
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2021
  18. flyboy56

    flyboy56 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Along with that text and the drawing and the parents knowing they bought the son a gun just days before and then the mother texting "don't do it" which I take it to mean don't kill yourself the parents negligent behavior played a role in the deaths of 4 people. I have to wonder why the mother didn't text "did you do it?" I would find it very hard to believe if the parents didn't know their son was troubled and why. This why we need the parents in court on trial to get answers families deserve.
     
  19. flyboy56

    flyboy56 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Investigating a murder is not subverting the legal system. Weapons used to commit the crime are always investigated. Remember no law is set in stone.
     
  20. Hoosier8

    Hoosier8 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    These are and why the charge is ludicrous.
     
  21. Bastiats libertarians

    Bastiats libertarians Well-Known Member

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    I think cooler heads should apply. Don't create a whole new set of legally dubious and probably constitutionally violating legal precedence just because you don't like gun laws in America. Your basically asking for Red Flag laws placed on all parents for the actions of a single individual and his shitty parents. The place to hold the parents accountable is in civil court. And boy are they accountable there.
     
  22. Bastiats libertarians

    Bastiats libertarians Well-Known Member

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    If by nonsense you mean 200 years of legal precedence in manslaughter cases, sure call it nonsense.
     
  23. Bastiats libertarians

    Bastiats libertarians Well-Known Member

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    The real reason these parents are charged for this is because Liberals hate guns and gun laws. Replace the tool used to commit these murders with anything else and you would not see the same charges being merited out. The Black kid in Dallas who shot up a school, were his parents charged? Nope. Because legal precedence does not allow for you to convict people of crimes they did not commit. Now I fully recognize that this set of parents are pieces of ****, irresponsible clowns. But you don't respond to that by indicting all parents who own firearms for the actions of these people. That is not a proportional response. The proper response is to convict the kid as an adult. And then go after the parents civilly for the reckless disregard of both their own Childs well being and disregard for others around them. That is the proportional response.
     
  24. notme

    notme Well-Known Member

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    Uh... the school told the parents about their kids fantasy about gun violence. And the parents didn't care at all that they gave their kid a gun, and didn't tell the school as far as I know. So it's the parents who did nothing with it.
     
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2021
  25. notme

    notme Well-Known Member

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    The parents were aware about the gun violence fantasies of their own kid. The school told them. Remember?
     

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