Parental authority faces new, tough test

The charges against the father of a US school shooter have ushered in a new era in the issue of parental responsibility.

Colin Gray bought his son Colt an AR-style rifle for Christmas last year, even though the boy had been questioned by police about online threats to commit a school shooting just seven months earlier.

Investigators suspect the 14-year-old used the same gun on Wednesday when he shot and killed four people and wounded nine others at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia.

The teenager has now been charged with murder and – in an unprecedented move – his father has also been charged.

Mr. Gray, 54, is charged with two counts of second-degree murder, four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children.

Together, these charges could carry a maximum prison sentence of 180 years.

Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said those accusing Gray of murder are alleging he “intentionally allowed his son to possess a gun.”

The two charges apply to the two teenagers killed in Wednesday’s shooting: Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, both 14 years old.

Two teachers from Apalachee — Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53 — were also killed in the attack.

The charges against Mr. Gray are second-degree felonies, which may be due to the specific wording in Georgia law.

Under the Criminal Code, a person commits second-degree murder “when he or she, through cruelty to children in the second degree, causes the death of another human being, regardless of whether or not it was malicious.”

Prosecutors filed the charges just 24 hours after the shooting. Experts warn that the facts are still not clear and it is unclear what legal arguments will be made against Mr. Gray.

“There is a connection between the deaths and ‘the commission of cruelty to children,’” said Evan Bernick, an associate professor of law at Northern Illinois University.

“But is the cruelty a direct result of the shooting, or is it cruelty to his son that may have driven (the boy) to commit the shooting? We just don’t know yet.”

The son will be tried as an adult, meaning the criminal justice system will treat his murder prosecution as a case where a person is fully responsible for his own actions.

But that does not mean his father will escape punishment, Professor Bernick told the BBC.

The gist of the argument is not that Colin Gray wanted the shooting to happen, but that he “failed to intervene, and his failure to intervene was negligent in a manner that warrants his being considered an objector to the murder.”

In the US, there are laws to punish parents or guardians for everything from truancy and underage driving to shoplifting and vandalism.

But Michigan prosecutors expanded the reach of such laws earlier this year when they secured two convictions against the parents of another teenage shooting suspect.

James and Jennifer Crumbley were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in prison for how their criminal negligence as parents contributed to their son Ethan, 14, killing four of his classmates in 2018.

Thursday’s decision to charge the father with murder — a much more serious charge — could once again test the legal limits of parental authority.

Eve Brank, a psychology professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, studies how the law intervenes and sometimes disrupts families’ decision-making.

She said the emerging concept of punishing parents after school shootings reflects broader frustration over gun violence in the U.S. and the failure to address the country’s ongoing string of gun incidents in the absence of regulatory reform.

“It’s not that we’ve created a bunch of new laws to address these problems. They’re just being used, somewhat creatively, to address the problem,” she said.

“The research shows that most people agree that there are many influences on children’s behavior, not just their parents.”

However, she noted that Georgia prosecutors may have access to information from the investigation that has not yet been made public and may believe they can successfully argue that Colin Gray’s actions, like those of the Crumbleys before him, were particularly egregious.

Tim Carey, legal and policy counsel at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, says charging parents is also a reflection of weak gun safety policies.

He said Georgia is “very wary of gun violence prevention policies,” and prosecutors in such states “may feel constrained to pursuing a sense of justice or retribution, in part because they were unable to prevent such a tragedy.”

Some legal scholars fear that expanding the tools prosecutors can use after a shooting could have unintended consequences.

“We know we have a problem with violence and guns in our society,” said Ekow Yankah, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Michigan.

“And instead of tackling it with systematic and regulatory powers, we appease ourselves with these kinds of extraordinary prosecutions.”

But, Professor Yankah warns, prosecutors are now armed with “a hammer” with which to target others, including poor, minority families and single parents.

“School shootings are very visible, but I worry about the cases that don’t make the news,” he said.

While parents are now at greater risk of punishment for their children’s violent acts, less progress has been made in universal access to firearms or the availability of mental health services for children in need.

“Our default response to very serious social problems in the United States is to use criminal justice,” said Prof. Bernick.