Jennifer Crumbley trial sees dramatic arrest video after going into hiding
Footage captures police entering a dark, industrial-looking room to find Ethan Crumbley’s parents sleeping on a mattress on the floor
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The jury in Jennifer Crumbley’s trial has seen dramatic footage of the moment she was tracked down and arrested days after her son shot up his Michigan high school.
On 30 November 2021, Ethan Crumbley opened fire inside Oxford High School, killing four of his classmates.
Following the mass shooting, Ethan’s parents Jennifer and James Crumbley appeared to go missing – before being tracked down to an artist studio close to the state border.
In court on Wednesday at Ms Crumbley’s trial, prosecutors played video of their arrests at around 1.30am on 4 December 2021.
The footage shows police entering a dark, industrial-looking room to find the Crumbleys sleeping on a mattress on the floor.
The officers point their guns at the Crumbleys, who had been asked to turn themselves in the day prior.
“Let me see these hands!” officers shout, as flashlights point at the mattress.
Mr Crumbley is heard screaming and seemingly struggling to stand on his own two feet. “Stand up!” an officer yells at him. When officers ask him his name, he says: “James.”
When pressed, “James what?” he replies with an exhausted: “Crumbley.”
Police body camera footage then shows a fleet of officers searching the room.
The Crumbley parents were each arrested and charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter.
The duo are facing separate historic trials, making them the first parents in US history to ever be charged or tried for their alleged role in a mass school shooting. They have both pleaded not guilty.
At the time of the arrests, the pair were staying at Ms Crumbley’s friend’s artist studio while the manhunt for them unfolded outside.
The jury heard how, in the days following the massacre, the Crumbleys came under scrutiny for their strange behaviour.
Reports showed the couple drained their son’s bank account, withdrew cash, sold their horses, and bought four burner phones in the hours after learning that their son was behind the school shooting.
The pair also checked into a hotel before landing at Ms Crumbley’s friend’s studio.
Ms Crumbley’s attorney told the jury on 25 January that the Crumbleys had been receiving “death threats” at their home, so they decided to stay at a hotel – as the defence pushes back on the claim that they were on the run.
The pair also bought burner phones – twice – because police had seized their normal phones and then they weren’t able to do two-factor authentication to access their bank accounts with their original burner phones, the defence claimed.
The defence attorney told jurors that the couple “weren’t hiding,” but were “waiting for instructions” and were “waiting to turn themselves in first thing Saturday morning, when arraignments take place”.