The New York Times has a chilling piece on the trial of Colin Gray, whose son is charged with killing two teachers and two students at a Georgia high school.
The shooter’s father faces charges including second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children. Prosecutors say he failed to take away the AR-15-style rifle he had given his son, despite the boy’s increasingly erratic threatening and violent behavior. They say he also failed to get his son psychological help, even as he and others around him recognized a pressing need for it.
Colorado has a firearms safe-storage law, under which a parent can be charged if a child uses an improperly-stored firearm in a crime. Two weeks ago, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office announced that the parents of the suspected Evergreen High School shooter will not face charges.
The Sheriff’s Office said investigators were unable to speak with the suspect’s parents, which complicated efforts to find out how he got access to the weapon. Ultimately, the Sheriff’s Office said, there was not enough evidence to establish probable cause or meet the requirements to bring the case to the District Attorney for charges.
The Georgia story says such charges are becoming more common. “In the search for accountability as one American community after another has been plunged into the grief caused by a mass shooting,” the Times says, “an increasingly common legal tactic has been to focus on parents, using criminal charges and civil litigation to hold them responsible when their child is believed to have carried out an attack.”