School shooter who killed four admits ‘I am a really bad person’ as he gets life sentence
A Michigan high school shooter who killed four students acknowledged he is a ‘really bad person’ as he was sentenced to life in prison.
Ethan Crumbley, 17, apologized to victims’ families and asked Judge Kwame Rowe to sentence him as they wished for his November 2021 shooting rampage at Oxford High School that also injured seven.
‘My actions were because of what I chose to do. I could not stop myself, I do not diminish any ability to anyone that could have stopped me. They did not know and I did not tell them what I planned to do so they are not at fault for what I done,’ Crumbley said in a packed courtroom in Pontiac on Friday afternoon.
He continued: ‘I am a really bad person.
‘I’ve done terrible things no one should ever do, I have lied. I’ve hurt many people, that’s what I have done.’
Crumbley, who was 15 when he carried out the shooting, said he was trying to change and that he planned ‘to be better’ with ‘whatever sentence’ he was given.
‘All I want is for the people I hurt to just have a final sense of culpability that justice has been served in any capacity,’ he said.
‘Any sentence they ask for I ask that you do impose it on me, I want them to be happy, to feel secure. I do not want them to worry another day. I am really sorry. I cannot give it a back.’
Crumbley pleaded guilty to 24 charges including four counts of first-degree murder and a count of terrorism causing death in October 2022.
On Friday, Crumbley looked down as he got life in prison without parole. He sentenced after several witnesses provided gut-wrenching testimony.
Reina St Juliana shared the pain she and her family have gone through without her sister.
‘Each day is just going through the motions because apparently we are supposed to go on. I hate it, I never asked for it, I never want to accept,’ she said.
‘Loving Hana shouldn’t be this painful, and life shouldn’t be so paralyzing. I don’t want to wake up in the morning because Hana is not here.’
Buck Myre, whose 16-year-old son Tate Myre was fatally shot, said, ‘We are miserable.’
‘Our family has a permanent hole in it that can never be fixed, ever. And there doesn’t appear to be a way out,’ he said. ‘So, to this day, you are winning.’
Lawyer Ven Johnson, representing the four students who were killed, called Crumbley’s sentence ‘a pivotal step towards justice for our clients and all survivors’.
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