It's become increasingly common for the parents of school shooters to face criminal charges of their own related to the deadly actions of their offspring. Will that be the case for the mother of the 16-year-old who attacked Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon before he was stopped by an armed citizen and father of two students at the school?
CBS News, citing anonymous sources, reports that the shotgun used in the attack was purchased just two months ago by the perpetrator's mother as a gift for her son; a practice allowed under Oregon law. As the New York Times notes, the state also has a gun storage mandate in place, but it comes without criminal penalties.
Legislators updated gun laws five years ago after a deadly attack during the holiday season at a suburban Portland mall that began when a man stole his roommate’s unsecured AR-15. They stiffened requirements for storage and made it easier to sue parents whose children misuse weapons if they failed to lock up the guns or supervise their use.
Lawmakers opted not to impose criminal penalties in part because similar statutes in other states disproportionately affected parents of color, said Amie Wexler, executive director of the Alliance for a Safe Oregon, a gun safety advocacy group.
Empirical evidence shows “we can’t arrest our way out of this problem,” she said. But she also noted that “nothing feels adequate for these families.”
I confess that I don't understand the rationale behind the current statute. Do Oregon Democrats and gun control advocates think it's okay for parents of color to disproportionately face lawsuits, so long as they're not facing criminal charges? That seems odd to me. And where was this concern over disparate impact when gun control activists put a ballot measure in place that does impose criminal penalties for obtaining a firearm without first getting a "permit to purchase"?
I digress. And even though the state's gun storage law doesn't impose any criminal penalties, there are other criminal statutes that could come into play, however.
Prosecutors could consider charges ranging from reckless endangerment to manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
But that would require evidence of more than just a parent’s awareness that a child was troubled. Prosecutors would have to establish that the mother disregarded — or, in the case of criminal negligence, failed to recognize — a substantial and unjustifiable risk.
“They’re essentially the same standards that would keep an adult from buying a gun,” said Mr. Marquis, the former prosecutor. “I think it would be very unlikely this woman will be charged unless there’s something very significant in her son’s background that hasn’t become public yet.”
We know very little about whether or not there were any warning signs beforehand, but my guess is that prosecutors will go after the mom if there was anything that indicated the perpetrator of this shooting was planning something nefarious beforehand.
Unlike some other prosecutions, though, where parents have actually faced manslaughter or second-degree murder, it looks like any criminal charges the Oregon mom might face would be based solely on her actions (or lack thereof).
That's as it should be, in my opinion. Parents shouldn't be held criminally responsible for their children's actions simply because they're the ones who brought them into this world, or even because they made the decision to allow their teenager to possess a firearm. There has to be evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of the parent, not just the horrific actions of their child.
If investigators uncover evidence that the mother knew her son was contemplating violence and still gave him a shotgun, that's a different story. The same is true if she ignored explicit threats or other unmistakable warning signs that her son posed a danger to himself or others. But we can't assume those circumstances existed just because something terrible happened.
I suspect we'll learn much more about the shooter's home life and his mother's decisions in the days ahead. Those facts may well justify criminal charges, but they could also reveal a parent who had no idea what her son was capable of doing.
The families devastated by this attack deserve answers, and anyone whose criminal negligence contributed to the violence should be held accountable. Accountability, though, isn't the same thing as finding someone else to punish when the person actually responsible for the murders is already dead.
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