Ethan Crumbley, who killed four classmates in a school shooting in Michigan, was sentenced today to multiple counts of life without the possibility of parole.
Crumbley, then 15, murdered four people and injured seven more on November 30, 2021, when he brought a handgun to his school, Oxford High, near Detroit, Michigan. Police maintain that Crumbley was not on their radar, but his troubling behavior was the subject of several school meetings. The day before the mass shooting, a teacher found drawings of a gun next to the words “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.” written on Crumbley’s math worksheet. His parents attended a meeting about that drawing the morning of the killings.
Crumbley pleaded guilty to 24 charges including first degree murder and terrorist, and, despite being just fifteen at the time, Crumbley was charged as an adult, in part because of the depth of planning he engaged in before the attack, which the judge called "a true act of terrorism.”
Crumbley’s parents are also in jail, awaiting a trial in January for involuntary manslaughter for buying him the gun used in the killing. This trial will the first of its kind in American history.
