Watch live: Prosecution testimony continues in Jennifer Crumbley trial

We're back in the courtroom of Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Matthews on Wednesday as Jennifer Crumbley's unprecedented trial on involuntary manslaughter charges continues.

She is the first parent in America to stand trial on charges stemming from a child's mass school shooting. Her son Ethan Crumbley has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for murdering four people at Oxford High School in November 2021. Father James Crumbley faces the same charges and is scheduled for trial March 5.

Watch the livestream here.

School officials were on the hot seat Tuesday, explaining why the shooter wasn't sent home after his parents were called to Oxford High on the morning of the shooting over a disturbing drawing, and why they didn't search his backpack, which held the gun his father bought him days before and that he would use hours later to kill four and wound seven.

When the Crumbleys were arrested

After hearing from the 9-1-1 caller who informed authorities of James and Jennifer Crumbley's location days after the shooting, jurors saw dramatic video footage from the night the parents were arrested while sleeping in a Detroit art gallery.

With guns drawn, a team of SWAT team officers entered the room and hollered instructions.

“On your f---ing stomach” an officer is heard yelling.

James Crumbley can be heard moaning and screaming.

“What’s your name?” an officer asks.

“James. James Crumbley,” he answered.

Once in handcuffs, James Crumbley is seen staring at the floor while a team of about a half dozen officers roam about the room.

The video was shown during the testimony of Cpl. David Shaw with the Detroit Police Department special response team, who was the first member of his team on the scene the night the Crumbleys were arrested.

He described for jurors the scene that night, saying there were “a ton of officers” already there, about 20 in the main entryway alone.

“We made entry into this building … we started searching the main floor slowly,” he said.

They broke one door down with a 35-pound ram, he said, noting the officer found nothing.

They then went to the second floor, cleared it, then went to the third floor, cleared that.

They wound up back on the first floor, where an officer opened the door to Suite 130 and found the Crumbleys sleeping, facing one another.

'The parents of the shooter that are running away, they’re here'

Luke Kirtley, whose business Coffeehaus is in the building on Detroit’s east side where James and Jennifer Crumbley were apprehended in December 2021, testified that he was aware of the school shooting and a poster with a description of the couple’s vehicle and its license plate number.

He said that when he went to the building on the night of Dec. 3, 2021, he saw a car in the parking lot that resembled the car on the wanted posters. Kirtley testified he pulled up the poster on his phone, walked around the car and realized the license plate was the same as on the poster.

“I looked over and saw somebody sitting next to the car on the curb” near the rear passenger side, he said.

He testified that he turned his flashlight off and went back into the building, assuming the person sitting near the car was related to the incident. Kirtley testified he went into his office and called 9-1-1.

The prosecution showed surveillance footage that overlooks the building’s parking area. The video sows him walking over to check the license plate. As they watched the video, Karen McDonald asked Kirtley what he was doing at one point in the surveillance footage.

Kirtley said: “Playing it cool.”

Prosecutors played his 9-1-1 call and Kirtley can be heard saying: “The parents of the shooter that are running away, they’re here. ”

He explained that it was the parents of “the Oakland shooter, the kid, has the two parents that are on the run right now.”

He testified he made the call from a corner of his office, and maybe 5 minutes later, he saw police lights. Kirtley said he met police, pointed out the car and let them into the building. He said a few minutes later, more officers showed up.

He testified they “came like locked and loaded.”

During cross-examination, defense attorney Shannon Smith asked Kirtley if the person he saw sitting outside that night tried to run away. No, he answered, adding he did not know if the person saw him.

Searching for the Crumbleys

Lt. Sgt. David Hendrick, who oversaw a fugitive apprehension task force assigned to help locate the Crumbleys in the days after the shooting, described the manhunt.

Hendrick told his crew to first check the addresses of friends of the Crumbleys. He eventually learned the couple had gone to a hotel, but did not know which one.

On the afternoon of Dec. 3, three days after the shooting, the couple’s vehicle was spotted at an Auburn Hills hotel, but the couple had left the vehicle there and traveled to another unknown location.

The task force would then learn that another vehicle owned by the Crumbleys was spotted outside an industrial building on Detroit’s east side.

Surveillance was set up.

Dozens of police vehicles converged on the scene.

The couple was found at 1 a.m. Dec. 4. in an art studio inside the building.

On cross-examination, Smith asked Hendrick if he knew that Jennifer Crumbley had hired a lawyer before she was arrested by police and that her lawyer had filed an appearance in court documents.

No, Hendrick replied.

Jennifer Crumbley: 'He's going to have to pay'

The prosecution has said it expects to rest its case by Friday and it still had nine witnesses to put on the stand.

Det. Lt. Sam Marzban Sam Marten of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department was the first witness Wednesday. His job included identifying the shooting victims. He provided graphic details for the jury about what he encountered that day, including how one of the victims was still wearing her backpack when he found her in the hallway. She had been shot in the head.

“It was kind of surreal,” he said of the scene.

Marzban also helped secure a search warrant of the shooter’s house, after identifying him through items found in his backpack, including his cellphone. On it were texts from his mom: “Ethan don’t do it,” she texted about an hour after the shooting had been reported.

“Ethan, call me now,” read a text from his dad.

But by then, Ethan Crumbley already had killed four classmates and wounded seven other people at the school.

Marzban also testified about the demeanor of Jennifer Crumbley when he first encountered her at the family home hours after the shooting. He told jurors that he sought to seize the parents' cellphones because he believed they were relevant to the shooting, particularly the mom’s text: "Ethan don’t do it."

“She did not want to give me her phone. She seemed irritated,” Marzban testified, adding he explained that this was part of the investigation. He said her husband told her the police would eventually get the phone, so she turned it over and gave him the password.

"I could tell she was kind of frustrated," Marzban told jurors. "I told her there several dead kids ... and that this was a significant incident, that it was on the national news and that the president had addressed it."

"Was Jennifer Crumbley crying?" Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald asked the witness.

She was not, he answered, but recalled Jennifer Crumbley saying, "'Lives were lost today, and he's going to have to suffer.'

"The choice of words was odd for me," he said.

On cross-examination, Smith asked Marzban if one of the concerns Jennifer Crumbley had about not having her cellphone was not having access to numbers for people on her contact list. Marzban said that’s why he allowed her to take down numbers.

Under questioning by Smith, Marzban said he only took one phone from Jennifer Crumbley.

“When you were taking that cellphone, if that was her only phone, it would be fair to say she wouldn’t have a phone to use after that,” Smith asked.

“Yes, that’s why I suggested she go purchase another phone,” he said, adding he suggested she buy a prepaid phone and provide that number to law enforcement.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Watch live: Prosecution testimony continues in Jennifer Crumbley trial