School district plans for inquiry
Michigan AG offers to look into events that led to fatal shooting
PONTIAC, Mich. — A third party will investigate events at Oxford High School that occurred before a school shooting that left four students dead and six other students and a teacher wounded, the Michigan district’s superintendent said.
The Michigan attorney general responded Sunday that her office could conduct it.
Oxford Community Schools Superintendent Tim Throne said in a statement that he called for the outside investigation because parents have asked questions about “the school’s version of events leading up to the shooting.” He also elaborated on interactions with the student before the shooting.
“It’s critically important to the victims, our staff and our entire community that a full and transparent accounting be made,” Throne said.
His comments came after a news conference Friday by Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald detailed numerous warning signs from Ethan Crumbley: his search for gun ammunition on a cellphone and a drawing that showed a bullet with the words “blood everywhere” above a person who appears to have been shot, along with messages of “my life is useless” and “the world is dead.”
“Of course he shouldn’t have gone back to that classroom. … I believe that is a universal position. I’m not going to chastise or attack, but yeah,” McDonald said. Asked if school officials might be charged, she said: “The investigation’s ongoing.”
On Tuesday, at the school roughly 30 miles north of Detroit, Crumbley was sent back to the classroom after a school meeting with his parents. Three hours later, the shooting occurred.
“The school should have been responsible to relay that to the sheriff’s office. It looks like this could have been prevented,” Robert Jordan, founder and director of St. Louis-based Protecting Our Students, said Friday. “People died because of those mistakes.”
In addition to Jordan, parents of students slain in a 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., said police should have been alerted before Tuesday’s rampage.
Crumbley, 15, is now charged as an adult with murder, terrorism and other crimes.
On Friday, prosecutors charged his parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, with four counts each of involuntary manslaughter. They pleaded innocent Saturday, and a judge set bail at $500,000 for each of them.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel tweeted Sunday that her office has reached out to the school to investigate the shooting and events leading up to it, saying, “Our attorneys and special agents are uniquely qualified to perform an investigation of this magnitude.”
“The school had the responsibility to be doing an immediate threat assessment on the student and bringing into that conversation the sworn police officer and law enforcement,” said Lori Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa, was one of 17 students slain in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Fla.
About five weeks before the Stoneman Douglas shooting, an FBI tip line received a call saying former student Nikolas Cruz had bought guns and planned to “slip into a school and start shooting the place up.”
That information was never forwarded to the FBI. Cruz, who had been expelled from the school a year earlier and had a long history of emotional and behavioral problems, never was contacted.
Cruz, now 23, pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of first-degree murder.
“We have to take these threats seriously,” Alhadeff said.
Looking at such an issue after the fact raises other questions, said Christopher Smith, professor of law and public policy at Michigan State University and chair of the Michigan Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence.
One has to consider whether the “teacher and school officials specifically have in their training that you need to report all these things,” Smith said.
In a video message to the community Thursday night, Throne acknowledged the meeting of Ethan Crumbley, the parents and school officials. Throne offered no details but said that “no discipline was warranted.”
In his statement Saturday, Throne elaborated on the events of Tuesday morning, saying the student was taken to the guidance counselor’s office where he claimed the drawing was part of a video game he was designing and that he planned to pursue video game design as a career. He worked on homework while waiting for his parents as counselors watched him.
“At no time did counselors believe the student might harm others based on his behavior, responses and demeanor, which appeared calm,” Throne said.
“While both of his parents were present, counselors asked specific probing questions regarding the potential for self-harm or harm to others,” Throne said, adding that counseling was recommended for him, and his parents were notified that they had 48 hours to seek it. “When the parents were asked to take their son home for the day, they flatly refused and left without their son, apparently to return to work.”
He said the student had no prior disciplinary infractions, so he was allowed to return to the classroom instead of being “sent home to an empty house.”