Roy S. Johnson: Questioning parenting after youth violence does not absolve lawmaker inaction

This is an opinion column.

This isn’t any easier to write than it was 16 months ago. In December 2021. The question no easier to ask.

I called it then a “tragic and deadly” time in our nation. In our state. In our cities. Due to the proliferation of “senseless violence” in our streets, homes, and workplaces. In our schools.

It still is such a time. Perhaps even more so when a Sweet 16 party is now added to the list of venues once deemed safe, sacrosanct, off limits. No more.

Back then, I wrote in the wake of yet another school shooting—so long ago now it’s likely long passed from your memory vault. On Tuesday, November 30, 2021, Ethan Crumbley, then a 15-year-old student at Oxford High School in Troy, Mich., about 30 miles north of Detroit, emerged from a bathroom at the school in the early afternoon and began firing at students with an SP2022 SIG Sauer 9mm pistol.

He killed four students: 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana, 16-year-old Tate Myre, Madisyn Baldwin, and Justin Shilling, both 17. He also wounded seven others—six students and a teacher.

Last October, Crumbley, who was charged as an adult, pleaded guilty to 24 charges levied against him, including terrorism and first-degree murder. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for June 2. Prosecutors have said they will seek the maximum: life without parole.

I wrote this tragedy because the gun Crumbley used was purchased for him by his father just four days before. As a Christmas present.

Soon after the shooting, James and Jennifer Crumbley were charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, not solely for supplying him with the gun but, according to prosecutors, ignoring numerous warning signs that their son was troubled.

Indeed about 30 minutes after Ethan began firing and news began to spread of a shooting at the school, according to prosecutors, Jennifer texted her son: “Ethan, don’t do it.” Fifteen minutes later, James called 911 to report a gun missing from his home, also telling the dispatcher he thought his son might be the shooter.

The parents have sought to have the charges dropped, saying their son must be solely accountable–not them. He pulled the trigger—not them.

Last month, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled there is sufficient evidence for the parents to stand trial for their role in the shooting. That decision will likely be appealed to the state’s Supreme Court.

In Alabama, a person is legally accountable for the behavior of another person if he/she “procures, induces or causes such other person to commit the offense.”

Back then, back in December 2021, I wrote: Perhaps parents, guardians, and others should be held more accountable for deadly crimes perpetrated by their children.

As the father of two children, now 28 and 26—and for whom I pray to be surrounded every moment by God’s hedge of protection—those weren’t easy to write. Every parent knows children make choices; they reach forks in life’s path and make choices.

For my children, I strived to become that voice they heard when they reach those forks. When they must choose. That voice steering them from senseless, violent, and potentially deadly choices.

Six young people, ranging from 16 to 20 years old, are facing charges in Tallapoosa County stemming from the unspeakable shooting at a Sweet 16 party in Dadeville that left four young people dead—three teenagers and a 23-year-old—and injured a stunning 32 others.

The event, like so many other shootings involving young people, in Alabama and around the nation—involving, it pains me to write, Black young people—prompted hard questions.

Where did they get the guns? Why did they have the guns?

And then this one, whispered by so many: Where were their parents?

Questions for now, with no answers.

The danger in the questions is that so many ask them quickly when the perpetrators are Black yet remain mute when young white fingers pull the trigger. Or feign “mental illness.”

And rather than engage in meaningful discussions about plausible, common-sense laws that could stem the flow of guns into inappropriate hands, Republican lawmakers nationwide wield the questions like Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak—hoping we won’t see their incessant inaction.

Every young person who commits a violent, senseless crime strides a different path to that fork, to that place where they made a tragic choice. The influences along that path are varied—some lay inside the home, others not so much.

All comprise an ecosystem borne over generations. An ecosystem infused with the debilitating effects of poverty, where residents are drained of resources, drained of quality services, drained of hope—leaving gaps filled with all manner of voices. Voices that scream for senseless, violent, and potentially deadly choices.

Yet should those who supplied the weapons that left four dead and 32 wounded in Dadeville be proven—be they kin or not—they should be held accountable to the extent the law allows.

The legal bar for prosecuting anyone beyond the person(s) who pulled the trigger is high. As it should be.

The moral bar? Not so much.

More columns by Roy S. Johnson

Why are our Black children shooting our Black children?

Tell me why, Republicans; or do silence and gun deaths speak for you?

I got it wrong; Republicans actually do want us to vote

MLK’s ‘Letter from Birmingham’ Jail’ is not divisive, should be taught in all schools

Heroism takes many forms; Nashville, Huntsville tragedies may tweak police narrative

After Gov Ivey signs law-and-order fentanyl bill, real work will just begin

I’m a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary and winner of the Edward R. Murrow prize for podcasts: “Unjustifiable,” co-hosted with John Archibald. My column appears in AL.com, as well as the Lede. Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter, The Barbershop, here. Reach me at [email protected], follow me at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj