THE SHOOTER PARENTS
Parents, such as those of Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook), Nicolas Cruz (Parkland), Ethan Crumbley (Oxford MI), Salvador Ramos (Uvalde), and Robert Crimo (Highland Park) all claim no awareness of their sons’ plans to commit a mass shooting.
How is this possible?
Were they all asleep at the wheel? Were they such negligent or even abusive or perhaps sadistically inclined parents that they bred and raised a mass killer? With the exception of James and Jennifer Crumbley, the other parent figures seemed almost above reproach, except for also assisting the purchase of assault weapons.
How could they not have known?
Indeed, they all should have known because of three key factors: (1) ABHERRANT BEHAVIOR, (2) SOCIAL MEDIA, and (3) GUNS.
behavior - adjustment - Personality
Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook)
Perhaps the most obviously disturbed, he was on the autism spectrum from very early in life and developed a variety of rigid, controlling, and avoidant behaviors, loosely described as OCD, but seem to have several facets including Sensory Integration Disorder (SID) in which sights and sounds, smells and being touched can be overwhelming (often associated with autism). Lanza may have had a severe personality disorder since people descried him as odd, remote, and reclusive, childhood friends said he was a “brainiac” with flat affect. He was noted to be insensitive to physical pain. Kept home from school after 10th grade, Lanza became totally reclusive and barricaded in his basement bedroom.
Nicolas Cruz (Parkland)
He gloated at the 2016 killing of 49 people at Orlando's Pulse nightclub, using an anti gay slur to describe the victims. He posted of his hatred of racial minorities, Christians, political liberals, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and animals, particularly alligators. Cruz also posted photographs of mutilated animals. He had a history of abusing animals. In 2013 psychiatrists began suggesting Nikolas be admitted involuntarily to a treatment facility. His acting-out behavior resulted in his being switched six times to different schools. He attended Stoneman Douglas High School but was expelled in 2017 for making threats against other students and was banned for carrying a backpack on school premises. He was subjected to involuntary psychiatric examinations which revealed that Nikolas suffered from depression and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). He was also autistic. Nikolas had been receiving mental health treatment but withdrew from treatment the year leading up to the shooting.
Ethan Crumbley (Oxford MI)
The parents, Jennifer and James Crumbley, are facing involuntary manslaughter charges.
Ethan enjoyed listening to the death squeals of baby birds, wrote about wanting to rape a female classmate and idolized cannibal killer Jeffrey Dahmer. In jail he asked, “How do I get my fan mail? How do I get my hate mail?” The note a teachers found resulted In Crumbley and his parents meeting with school personnel just hours before the shooting. It showed: a drawing of a semiautomatic handgun pointing at the words "the thoughts won't stop help me"; a drawing of a bullet with the words "blood everywhere"; a drawing of a person who appeared to have been shot and was bleeding; and a drawing of a laughing emoji. It also included these words: "my life is useless" and "the world is dead."
Salvador Ramos (Uvalde)
Ramos was described as a loner with little if any social life. He attended a local high school and lived with his grandparents, He had no friends and had no criminal history or gang affiliation. He worked the day shift at a local Wendy's and kept mostly to himself. A former classmate said Ramos "would get severely bullied and made fun of a lot" and was taunted by others for the clothes he wore and his family's financial situation. "People would, like, actually call him school shooter and stuff like that." At some point Ramos had stopped attending school regularly. He had a history of physically fighting with others. A video on Snapchat more than a year before the shooting depicts Ramos fighting with someone else. "He would always get in fights in school."
Robert Crimo III (Highland Park)
Robert "Bobby" Crimo III was on a "downward spiral" that lasted for years but went unheeded by his family, friends said. Crimo threatened to kill himself and attempted suicide a few times between 2016 and 2017. One friend said that she reached out to Crimo's dad on Facebook around 2015 after he "said some concerning things about wanting to overdose." Instead of responding to her message, his father blocked her. Weeks later, she claims, a mutual friend visited Crimo's home and again voiced concerns. "He felt a lot of times that his parents didn't care about him.” In an April 29, 2019, Highland Park Police incident report officers were called to the Crimo home for a well-being check. Both Crimo and his mother said he had been depressed and had "a history of drug use." Crimo's father told police about the son's collection of knives that were being stored in a "tin can lunch box, along with a 12-inch dagger, and a 24-inch Samurai type blade" in his bedroom closet. The weapons were removed from the home.
All five shooters had social media profiles the clearly showed interest in violence, bizarre behavior, extremely disturbing imagery, and a fascination with shooters
SOCIAL MEDIA
Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook)
Lanza had a number of books and articles on other mass killings. Lanza was obsessed with school shootings, particularly Columbine. An internet acquaintance told the FBI about Lanza’s disturbing history online, including his Tumblr accounts. Those accounts were homages to previous school shooters, complete with graphic collages of Columbine victims. “I'm still waiting for a mass shooter who eschews 9mm pistols and instead buys an AK-47 pistol, 30 30-round magazines, and 1000 hollow points,” Lanza posted in a forum in January 2011. Lanza posted on a forum about the video game “Super Columbine Massacre RPG,” which lets players relive the 1999 Columbine High School massacre from the viewpoint of the killers. Lanza also played a video game called “School Shooter,” in which the player guns down students from a first-person view. Lanza shared a graphic collage of corpses from Columbine. In another post Lanza shared a series of pictures of the Virginia Tech murderer. He posted a compilation of “school shooting monologues” from movies and television shows and he uploaded videos and audio of school shooters. An acquaintance described him as “the weirdest person online” and told investigators that Lanza was “working on a list, or spreadsheet, meticulously documenting the details of hundreds of spree killings and mass murders.”
Nicolas Cruz (Parkland)
Cruz’s digital profile contains a variety of gun and violence-related posts on social media and included slurs against blacks and Muslims. Cruz also included these comments under videos on YouTube and other sites: "I whana shoot people with my AR-15”; " | wanna die Fighting killing s**t ton of people"; " | am going to kill law enforcement one day they go after the good people." Shortly before the shooting he posted a comment to a logger's YouTube page, saying, "Im going to be a professional school shooter." On his Instagram page, Cruz posted a photo of a shotgun. In another photo he brandishes what appears to be a BB gun. In other pictures, he is covering his face with a kerchief and brandishing long knives.
Ethan Crumbley (Oxford MI)
He kept a journal which contained plans to stalk, rape, torture and ultimately kill a female classmate,” He expressed delight in torturing a family of baby birds, and he wrote about the joy of listening to them squeal as he killed them. Crumbley wrote that he admired Dahmer and Adolf Hitler because “when you die, you need to be remembered for a long time.” He also wrote in his journal that he hoped the shooting would get Joe Biden impeached. “I want America to hear what I did.” “People will be talking about my shooting for years and I will make a huge impact on the United States.” His journal described his slide into his "dark side" before going on his rampage. The journal contains disturbing drawings, such as one of a girl with an "x" across her eyes and a semi-automatic weapon firing into the person. The words written around the drawing say "the first victim has to be pretty girl with a future so she can suffer like me." Another entry said: “I will kill everyone I f****** see.” He had a countdown clock on Instagram, marking the 'return of the devil'. He also showed off the big Saur pistol his dad bought just days before the shooting, in multiple Instagram posts. "First off, I got my gun. It's an SP2022 SIG Sauer 9mm. Second, the shooting is tomorrow, I have access to the gun and ammo.” "I will cause the biggest school shooting in Michigan's history. I have fully mentally lost it after years of fighting with my dark side. My parents won't listen to me about help or a therapist."
Salvador Ramos (Uvalde)
Hours before the shooting, Ramos made a series of ominous messages on different social media sites. The Instagram account that was linked to Ramos posted a photo of two rifles lying on a carpet. He exchanged messages with a girl beginning days before the shooting, ending about 30 minutes before he started shooting, He wrote, "I'm going to shoot my grandmother." Shortly after, he wrote, "I shot my grandmother." And finally: "I'm going to shoot an elementary school."
Robert Crimo III (Highland Park)
Crimo posted music videos on several major streaming platforms featuring ominous lyrics and animated scenes of gun violence. In one video entitled “Are you Awake,” a cartoon animation of a stick-figure shooter resembling the suspect’s appearance is seen wearing tactical gear and carrying out an attack with a rifle. Crimo, seen with multicolored hair and face tattoos, narrates, “I need to just do it. It is my destiny.” In another video a similar stick-figure resembling Crimo is lying face down on the floor in a pool of his own blood, surrounded by police officers with their guns drawn.
All five parents were either directly involved in arming their shooter sons or allowed them access to such guns, semi-automatic assault rifles, war weaponry not available to police
GUNS
Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook)
A Glock handgun, a Sig Sauer handgun and a Bushmaster rifle were recovered after the shooting at Sandy Hook. Authorities say that Nancy Lanza had five weapons registered to her, including a Sig Sauer, a Glock and a Bushmaster. She was a longtime gun enthusiast. Friends and neighbors said she took her son to the gun range to avoid leaving him alone. He had access to all of them.
Nicolas Cruz (Parkland)
The Florida couple who took in school shooter Nikolas Cruz knew the depressed 19-year-old owned multiple guns, but felt safe knowing the weapons were under lock and key. Despite a disciplinary record at school, Cruz legally purchased the AR-15 rifle he used to kill 17 people and injure dozens more.
Ethan Crumbley (Oxford MI)
James Crumbley, Ethan’s father,, purchased the 9mm Sig Sauer pistol at a local firearms store four days before the shooting. Ethan Crumbley had access to the gun.
Salvador Ramos (Uvalde)
Exactly one week before the mass shooting, and the day after his birthday, Ramos headed to a local sporting goods store and bought a semi-automatic rifle, two days later he bought another, a Daniel Defense AR-style rifle and 375 rounds of ammunition.
CONCLUSION
All parental figures in these five shooter cases should have known and should, in the very least, be viewed as morally culpable.
In his book, The Crime of Complicity: The Bystander in the Holocaust, Amos Guiora delineates the moral and legal culpability of the bystander, those who were present and witnessed the maltreatment and desperate situation of victims. The parental figures in the five shooter cases all had sufficient knowledge about the shooters, and especially allowing them access to the terrible weapons they employed, to have prevented the terrible crimes they committed. What parents with disturbed and deteriorating teenagers would not check into their social media, knowing they were using it, surely worried about their mental status? It is there where these desperately unhappy, fiercely angry young men poured out their thoughts, their feelings, their problems, their fixations on shootings, on killings, on murders, and on death. How do you have a murderer in your midst, with weapons at his disposal, and not sense danger?
