In rare move, US school shooter's parents charged with manslaughter

It featured a drawing of a gun and the words "The thoughts won't stop. Help me."

It also had a picture of a bullet, a person who had been shot and the words "my life is useless" and "the world is dead," she said.

The parents were shown the drawing at a meeting with school officials and advised that they needed to get the boy into counselling within 48 hours.

McDonald said they resisted taking their son home and he returned to class. He later entered a bathroom, emerged with the gun, which he had concealed in his backpack, and opened fire.

"The notion that a parent could read those words and also know that their son had access to a deadly weapon that they gave him is unconscionable and I think it's criminal," McDonald said.

"I am angry," she said. "I'm angry as a mother. I'm angry as the prosecutor. I'm angry as a person that lives in this county.

"We need to do better in this country," she said. "We need to say enough is enough for our kids, our teachers, parents, for all of us in this community and the communities across this nation."

Ethan Crumbley fired off at least 30 rounds, reloading with a fresh ammunition magazine as fellow students fled.

Students and teachers barricaded themselves in classrooms, as they had been taught to do in drills, and some escaped the school through windows.

McDonald said that Jennifer Crumbley, when she heard about the shooting, had texted her son, saying, "Ethan don't do it."

James Crumbley, when he heard the news, drove home and then called the emergency line 9-1-1 to report that a gun was missing from his house and that he believed his son may be the shooter, McDonald said.

Involuntary manslaughter carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison.