Charges against parents of school shooting suspects could be on the rise

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DENVER (KDVR) -— Wednesday’s shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia has unearthed many memories for those who still remember the shooting at Denver’s East High School.

“We have seen a lot of tragedy at our school and our heart just goes out to those who are impacted by gun violence in this recent case in Georgia,” said Steve Katsaros, co-founder of Parent Safety Advocacy Group and father of two East High School students. “It is a very stark reminder of just how serious the consequences are when administrators don’t take school safety as their top priority.”

Chris Decker, a criminal law expert and FOX31’s legal analyst, said the shooting at Apalachee High School, in which a student shot and killed two students and two teachers, will likely have people scrambling to find ways to protect children in schools.

“This is just another horrific school shooting, you know, which we have been seeing more and more frequently,” Decker said.

He also said it now raises issues in criminal law on how authorities treat 14-year-olds when they engage in mass shootings.

“He will be treated in all respects like an adult with respect to his criminal justice case,” Decker said. “It also raises the issues of parental liability.”

Parental liability in school shooting cases

This was first seen back in April, when Jennifer and James Crumbley were convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years in prison after prosecutors said they kept an unsecured gun at home and showed indifference toward their son’s mental health. Their son, Ethan Crumbley, was 17 years old when he killed four students at a high school in 2021.

“Traditionally, we have not held the parents responsible criminally for the conduct of their children, especially when we’re treating those children as adults,” Decker said.

The case marked a turning point and had people asking when parents can be held criminally responsible.

“The first context is when the parents are involved in the shooting. That would be called ‘accomplice liability,'” Decker said. “The example would be, the parents are aware of it, they buy the weapon, they drop the child off at school and say, you know, ‘Don’t forget your bulletproof vest.’ That is a parent who is an accomplice to a murderous act.”

There is another context seen more recently, which is criminally negligent homicide.

“This entire notion of prosecuting parents under theories of criminally negligent homicide or reckless manslaughter by failing to act is quite new and quite unique in the criminal law,” Decker said.

When parents buy the gun used in a school shooting

In the Michigan case, there was a lot of evidence that the parents not only bought the weapon for the child but took very few, if any, precautions to limit the access to that weapon. Then, in the Georgia case, the father of the suspect, Colin Gray, 54, “knowingly allowed” his son, Colt Gray, to have a weapon.

As long as mass school shootings continue on this upward trajectory, Decker said more and more parents may be charged in connection with the crimes of their children.

“I think we’ll see more and more prosecutions of parents in situations where it’s clear they were criminally negligent, or even worse reckless, in not intervening with something they saw unfolding,” Decker said.

For Katsaros, he said he sees this as a possible example of a new approach by authorities to curb similar incidents.

“If parents know that the consequences that they’re going to be held accountable,” Katsaros said,” then their behavior of raising their children will match the seriousness of what we’re dealing with in this age.”

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Rachel Saurer

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