Aspiring Mass Shooter's Mom Was Helping Him To Chase His Dreams, Authorities Say
It's like Toddlers and Tiaras, but with AR-15s and racist manifestos.
Last year, Jennifer and James Crumbley were sentenced to ten years each for involuntary manslaughter for having ignored extremely obvious signs that their son, Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley, was mentally deteriorating and for failing to secure the semiautomatic gun they had purchased for him just days before he murdered four people and injured seven more.
That was bad enough. Now we have Ashley Pardo, a San Antonio mom who, it appears, was actively supporting her son’s dream of becoming a mass shooter. For much of this year, Pardo’s son had been getting in trouble at school for reasons related to his apparently robust enthusiasm for school shootings. This time, however, it was his own grandmother who reported the duo to police after she walked into his bedroom and found “rifle and pistol magazines ‘loaded with live ammunition’ and a homemade explosive,” a handwritten list of other mass shooters and their body counts.
The homemade explosive was “decorated” with SS symbols, the 14 words and other symbols of white supremacist ideology, as well as the words “For Brenton Tarrant,” the white supremacist mass shooter who, in 2019, killed 51 people in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The grandmother also told police that the boy told her before he went off to school that he was “going to be famous” and referenced the white supremacist “Fourteen Words,” i.e. “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
She added that the 33-year-old mother had recently bought him “tactical gear, including magazines, a tactical vest capable of concealing ballistic plates, a tactical helmet and army clothing,” in exchange for babysitting his younger siblings. You know, just normal family stuff.
Via CNN:
Pardo bought the materials despite being aware of her son’s obsession with violence, according to a Bexar County arrest affidavit obtained by CNN affiliate KSAT. The affidavit alleges that Pardo “intentionally and knowingly aided” her son.
“The Defendant expressed to the school her support of (her son’s) violent expressions and drawings and does not feel concerned for his behavior,” the affidavit says.
The alleged plot placed people at his school “in further fear of serious bodily injury,” an investigator wrote.
The boy went to school May 12 “wearing a mask, camouflage jacket and tactical pants,” then left shortly afterwards, according to the affidavit. When authorities couldn’t locate him, school officials feared he might return to carry out an attack, the affidavit says. Extra security was put in place, including deploying additional police officers and sweeping the campus for potential devices, authorities said.
Previously, in January, the school found some drawings the student had made, which included a map of the school labeled “suicide route,” the name of the school next to a picture of a rifle, and timestamps. When confronted about this, he told authorities at the school that he was just really into mass shooters and their manifestos, which I’m sure made everyone feel much better.
About a month ago, he was suspended for researching the Christchurch shooting on a school-issued computer, and then later tried to kill himself with a straight razor. The school’s solution to that problem was to send him to alternative school for a few weeks before bringing him back.
Apparently, the grandmother is the only person in this entire scenario with an ounce of sense. Perhaps the school and the authorities might have been more interested in the situation earlier, had the boy been seeking an abortion.
Pardo was arrested on May 12, charged with aiding in commission of terrorism and released on bond. According to a letter sent to parents at Jeremiah Rhodes Middle School, her son has been "detained off-campus and is being charged with terrorism."
You know, it is one thing for a parent to encourage their child’s interests in, say, poetry or cheerleading or theater or football or even child pageants. It is another thing entirely to encourage their interests in mass shootings, guns and white supremacy. That just takes things a little too far. And while guns and white supremacy are certainly more tolerated in Texas than elsewhere, I have to imagine that parents were not thrilled to discover that this little darling was still going to school with their kids after all of that.
Hopefully — because we are still talking about an eighth-grader here — this kid will get the psychological help he so clearly needs, and he and his siblings will be kept far away from Ashley Pardo, who may, at this point, be beyond help.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that much what the fuck in a single photo.
Wow. Even for Texas, that’s fucked up. I say this as someone who lived there for 15 years.