Within hours of that meeting, Ethan started shooting.
In his opening statement on Thursday (local time), Oakland County Prosecutor Mark Keast emphasized that Jennifer Crumbley was not accused of murder, nor was she accused of simply being a bad mother. But he said that because of her “willful disregard for the danger of which she was aware,” she was a cause of Ethan’s mass shooting.
Parents walk with their children away from the Meijer parking lot, where many students gathered after the mass shooting at Oxford High School.credit: AP
“Jennifer Crumbley did not pull the trigger that day,” Keast said. “But they are responsible for those deaths.”
Keast spent much of his opening statement describing a series of troubling signs that led up to the shooting — signs of a “deteriorating mental crisis” that he said Jennifer Crumbley was aware of but did not share with the school — while suggesting that prosecutors would shed light On her too. Actions in the aftermath. After Ethan's arrest, the Crombley family fled the area, and police later found them in the basement of an art studio in Detroit.
“Her first instinct was to lie,” Keast said. “Her second goal was to run.”
Shannon Smith, the attorney representing Jennifer Crumbley, said the prosecution was trying to blame a woman who “did the best she could” raise her son for the heinous attack.
Jennifer Crombley only learned after the shooting of several troubling signs, such as text message exchanges between Ethan and his friends, that prosecutors might point to as evidence of Ethan's mental ancestry, Smith said. Smith said that Ethan hid these signs from his mother and that school officials never told her about some of the more troubling instances of Ethan's behavior.
“He did something that you could never have expected or understood or predicted,” said Smith, who also told the jury that Jennifer Crumbley would take the stand.
Smith insisted that the Crombley family went to Detroit after the shooting because they were facing death threats and that they planned to turn themselves in after learning they were facing charges.
After opening arguments Thursday, the prosecution called its first witnesses, starting with a teacher and assistant principal who were at the high school on the day of the shooting. As surveillance video played in the courtroom, witnesses described the chaos and violence that erupted, at times breaking down in tears.
Ethan Crombley sits in court during his trial.credit: AP
The final witness of the afternoon was Special Agent Brett Brandon of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who responded to the shooting. Through Brandon's testimony, as well as Facebook messages, Instagram posts and surveillance videos submitted as evidence, the jury learned how Ethan's parents took him to buy firearms, including the weapons used in the shooting, and brought him to the shooting range several times. Brandon also testified that the weapons, which were not registered, did not appear to be stored very securely at Crombley's home.
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The most heated clashes came during the mid-morning break after the jury was sent from the courtroom for a break. Jennifer Crombley was audibly crying as videos of the shooting played. Prosecutors complained to Judge Cheryl Matthews that the defense did not adhere to instructions on emotional control during court proceedings. Smith, the defense attorney, countered that the videos were horrific.
Matthews advised patience.
“Everyone here is human,” she said. She stressed that she was trying to have a fair trial, and that if people found things too painful to bear, they should leave the courtroom.
But she added: “I'm not a robot. I'm trying to stop myself from crying. I'll do it at 6pm.”
This article originally appeared on New York times.
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