Michigan School Shooter's Dad Called 911 About Missing Gun

PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — Prosecutors on Thursday played a recording of a desperate 911 call by the father of a Michigan school shooter as they tried to show jurors how he quickly determined that the teen might be the killer.

“I have a missing gun at my house.… I raced home just to like find out, and I think my son took the gun,” James Crumbley said frantically, soon after a fruitless search of the house for the gun and ammunition.

“I don’t know if it’s him. I don’t know what’s going on. I am really freaking out. My son’s name is Ethan Crumbley,” the father said.

It was the last piece of evidence presented on the first day of James Crumbley’s involuntary manslaughter trial in suburban Detroit. He isn’t accused of knowing that 15-year-old Ethan planned to shoot up Oxford High School, but prosecutors allege that his gross negligence was a cause of the tragedy.

Four students were killed and seven people were wounded on Nov. 30, 2021. The shooter’s mother, Jennifer Crumbley, was found guilty of the same involuntary manslaughter charges last month.

The Crumbleys are the first U.S. parents to be charged with having criminal responsibility for a mass school shooting committed by a child.

“This case isn’t about bad parenting — it’s not illegal to be a bad parent. It’s not kids doing kid things,” assistant prosecutor Marc Keast told jurors. “We’re talking about preventable mass murder.”

Keast emphasized a series of key points during his opening statement. He noted that James Crumbley, accompanied by his son, bought a Sig Sauer 9 mm handgun four days before the shooting.

The father never told school staff about the purchase — or a trip to a shooting range that same weekend — when he and his wife were summoned to discuss a disturbing