This month’s manslaughter conviction of Jennifer Crumbley, whose 15-year-old son Ethan killed four people and injured seven others in a 2021 Michigan school shooting, has focused attention on the obligations of family members and others who witness signs of serious mental health issues that pose a threat to the safety of the individual, his or her family, and the community around them.
The facts leading to the conviction were chilling. Crumbley and her husband, who faces trial later this year on similar charges, knew of their son’s challenges, but still bought him a gun as an early Christmas present days before the shooting. The morning of the shooting, teachers told Ethan’s parents he needed counseling after seeing drawings on his desk of a gun and bullets, and the words “blood everywhere” and “the thoughts won’t stop, help me.” But no one checked his backpack where the gun he would use later that day was located.
The case tells us how important it is for families to recognize red flags when a family member suffers from serious mental health issues, substance abuse or other psychological challenges. Enabling only prevents moving forward with treatment and positive interventions that can protect the individual, family members and the broader community.
The fact that Jennifer Crumbley faced criminal liability underscores the importance of extending that obligation for intervention to teachers and others who are aware of red flags. Passage of red flag laws — known as Extreme Risk Protection Order laws — helps, but they are no substitute for increased education about the need for mental health professionals to intercede.
In my mental health legal and clinical practice, where I work with families facing challenges posed by a family member in the throes of mental health challenges, substance use disorder and related diagnoses of symptoms, I will now be asking if there are any weapons in the house, and whether those weapons are securely stored beyond the reach of the person in crisis.
It must be said that stigmatizing people with mental illness is an insidious societal canard. People with mental illness are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. But it is also true that mental health issues and substance abuse disorder can increase the risk of violence.
It’s that balancing act — between an individual’s rights and the mental health challenges that justify overriding those rights — that makes this such a difficult decision, though less so for a minor such as Ethan Crumbley than for an adult.
New York is one of 21 states with ERPO laws allowing family members, police or mental health professionals to petition courts to remove guns from the home. New York’s law was strengthened after the 2022 massacre at a Buffalo supermarket where the perpetrator had threatened a mass shooting; he had been released from a hospital without an order barring him from owning or buying a weapon.
In a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, last October that left 18 people dead, police said they were limited in their ability to take guns from the shooter under that state’s less powerful “yellow flag” law that requires they meet face-to-face with the person in crisis. An autopsy showed that the shooter had brain damage consistent with veterans who’ve been exposed to repeated weapons blasts.
We know the availability of a weapon, combined with identified mental health issues of concern, can lead to violence, or more likely a suicide attempt. If weapons are not easily accessible, it gives time to intervene, and hopefully divert thoughts of violence or their escalation.
And early intervention can allow the afflicted person, and his or her loved ones, to start the process of rebuilding his or her life.
Carolyn Reinach Wolf is the director of the mental health law practice at Abrams Fensterman.
Carolyn Reinach Wolf , 2024-03-07 18:45:51
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