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School shooter’s father said he feels ‘like a martyr’ in jail calls: ‘I feel like I joined the military’

April 13, 2024 | | Print Article

Just days into his 10 – 15 year prison sentence on four counts of involuntary manslaughter, the father of Michigan school mass shooter Ethan Crumbley says he is a “martyr.”

As BizPac Review reported, James Crumbley and his wife, Jennifer Crumbley, were convicted of involuntary manslaughter for providing access to the gun then-15-year-old Ethan used to slaughter four students and injure seven more at Detroit’s Oxford High School on Nov. 30th, 2021.

James received his sentence from an Oakland County, Michigan, judge on Tuesday, according to Fox News Digital which obtained the father’s jail calls.

“I kind of feel like a martyr,” James said in one of the calls. “We’re martyrs, you know, without the whole dying aspect of it. Because I don’t know a better word to use. So I use the word ‘martyr.’”

“But we’re martyrs to make sure that this doesn’t happen to anybody else in America again,” he said. “To make sure that nobody like that dumb, stupid b—h [Oakland County Prosecutor] Karen McDonald.”

According to James, he and Jennifer are “going to fight the good battle for everybody else.”

“I feel like I joined the military and I’m going to fight for my country,” he says. Because, in James’s mind, bartering bologna for a Honey Bun is just like getting bombed in Kandahar.

“You know, I kind of am.,” James said. “I’m fighting for everybody else’s freedom.”

(Video: YouTube)

“Parts of some of James’ jail calls were read aloud in court during the defendant’s sentencing hearing on Tuesday,” Fox News Digital reports. “Specifically, prosecutors highlighted moments when James appeared to threaten McDonald, an Oakland County prosecutor who initially brought historic charges against both Crumbley parents in December 2021.”

“They are the first parents of a school shooter in U.S. history to be charged — and convicted — for their child’s crimes,” the outlet notes.

In another call, James made his thoughts about McDonald known, and he dared the jail to record them.

“Yeah, Karen McDonald, you’re going down,” he said. “Go ahead, record this call. Send it to Karen McDonald. Tell her how James Crumbley’s going to take her down.”

“She will not have a law license when I get done with her,” he raged. “And like I said, Karen McDonald will be working a f—ing McDonald’s because she won’t be able to get a f—ing job anywhere else.”

“Later on, James says that when he gets out of jail, he is going on a ‘rampage,'” Fox News Digital reports.

Arguing before Oakland County Judge Cheryl Matthews on Tuesday, James’s defense attorney, Mariell Lehman, claimed her client never threatened McDonald.

“I’m disputing… that Mr. Crumbley has ever made a physical threat against prosecutor McDonald,” Lehman said. “He has vented. He has been angry… but he has never threatened to physically harm Ms. McDonald.”

“Instead… the statements made by Mr. Crumbley — although there has been some language that may not be very respectful, that may be angry out of frustration for being incarcerated and on lockdown for 23 hours a day for the last two-and-a-half years, for something that Mr. Crumbley and I maintain that he did not do illegally or wrong — but he vented his frustrations,” the lawyer stated.

It was at his sentencing that James addressed the court for the first time, having declined to testify during his trial.

The father took on a very different tone for that event.

“I really want the families of Madisyn Baldwin, Hana St. Juliana, Tate Myre and Justin Shilling to know… how truly sorry I am and how devastated I was when I heard what happened to them,” he said. “I have cried for you and the loss of your children more times than I can count. I know your pain and loss will never go away. Part of you will be missing forever. But please know that I am truly very sorry.”

“The whole truth has not been told. And I’m with you. … I, too, want the truth,” he told the court. “You have not had it. You have not had the truth at all.”

Melissa Fine
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