3 dead, 8 hurt in Michigan high school shooting; 15-year-old in custody
OXFORD, Mich. — A five-minute rampage left three students dead Tuesday and eight others wounded in an afternoon tragedy that made Oxford High School the latest site of a school shooting in America.
The suspected shooter, an unidentified 15-year-old sophomore, was in custody, Oakland County Undersheriff Mike Mccabe said during a news conference. He was not injured.
“Deputies confronted him, he had the weapon on him and deputies took him into custody,” Mccabe said, adding the weapon was a semi-automatic handgun. “The whole thing lasted five minutes.”
Mccabe, during an afternoon news briefing, said the students killed include two females, ages 14 and 17, and a 16-year-old male.
Of those wounded, two were in surgery and their conditions weren’t immediately known. The other six were in stable condition “with various gunshot wounds,” he said. The wounded are at three hospitals: Mclaren Lapeer Region Community Medical Center, Mclaren Oakland in Pontiac and St. Joseph Mercy Oakland in Pontiac.
The victims have not yet been identified, but the undersheriff said a teacher is among those wounded at Oxford High, which is located north of the city of Oxford and about 45 miles north of the city of Detroit.
A tearful Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer joined Mccabe for the late afternoon news conference, telling reporters: “This is every parent’s worst nightmare.”
“My heart goes out to the families. This is an unimaginable tragedy,” she said. “I hope that we can all rise to the occasion and wrap our arms around the families.”
About 15 to 20 shots were fired and about 100 calls were placed to 911, Mccabe said. The shooter, he said, appears to have acted alone. The shootings happened in the south end of the school, which has about 1,800 students, he said.
“We don’t know if they (the students) were targeted,” Mccabe said. “We will get to the bottom of that when we get further into this investigation.”
The undersheriff said the suspect was arrested by a deputy detailed to the site and one who arrived on the scene. As for how the suspect got the gun inside, Mccabe said: “We know, but I’m not going to say that right now.”
Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said late Tuesday night that the suspect had a Sig Sauer 9 mm semiautomatic pistol with seven rounds in it when authorities took him into custody.
The sheriff said the boy’s father purchased the weapon four days ago on Nov. 26, and police found two 15-round clips in the school and are looking for a third.
Bouchard praised the hundreds of first responders who assisted.
“After other school shootings across the country, in some scenarios where deputies didn’t go in, I made it very clear to our staff, if they get there first, they’re going in. (Deputies) went in and searched out the threats. They went to the gunshots.”
Earlier in the day, the suspect, after being detained, “invoked his right to not speak; he wants an attorney,” Mccabe said. The suspect is being housed at Children’s Village in Pontiac.
“We have to get permission from parents to interview a juvenile, and we did not get that,” Mccabe added.
The family has hired an attorney, Mccabe added, and authorities executed a search warrant at the teen’s home. Authorities are still investigating the motive.
Authorities swarmed a nearby neighborhood in Oxford and could be seen entering the family home of the suspect.
The Detroit News is not naming the alleged suspect because he is a juvenile who has not been charged. He has not been publicly identified by authorities.
Oxford Township Supervisor Jack Curtis told The News Tuesday that he sent four kids through Oxford High School. He’s called Oxford home for 50 years and said the shootings are “a very large tragedy for this small town.”