One of the United States’ finest chroniclers of gun violence embedded with Michigan prosecutors as they pursued homicide charges against Jennifer and James Crumbley, whose son killed four students at Oxford High School. The result is a riveting legal narrative centered on Karen McDonald, the chief prosecutor in the cases:
Just past noon on Dec. 2, 2021, McDonald met with her office’s most senior attorneys. Among them was John Skrzynski, “the godfather” of Michigan prosecutors who’d convicted Jack Kevorkian, the pioneer of physician-assisted suicide known as “Dr. Death.” Skrzynski had just turned 70 and needed a new hip, but he remained imposing. McDonald knew he didn’t believe she should charge the parents, but he wasn’t her only detractor. Other attorneys also questioned whether the Crumbleys’ actions fit the definition of “gross negligence” that Michigan law required to convict someone of involuntary manslaughter.
McDonald, who felt uneasy when she couldn’t build consensus, took a seat, an American flag hanging behind her. She scanned the faces looking back. Some, maybe all, disagreed with her. The legal system was built on precedent, and for what she intended to do, none existed. But it was her name on the wall. If there was public backlash, if a judge dismissed the charges, she would bear the consequences.
Be honest, McDonald told her staff. Give me your opinion. But know this: “We’re charging the parents.”
McDonald immediately became an object of admiration to Americans fed up with gun violence, but something else happened, too. Within hours of the news conference where she announced her decision, threats of rape and murder began to arrive on her social media, her email, her cellphone.
Soon, armed security was stationed outside her home, every hour of every day. A former police officer started driving her to and from the office. She no longer went to the grocery store alone. She regretted that her front door was made of glass. It was too easy to see through — to shoot through. She stopped passing in front of it.
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