Sheriff: 15-year-old boy’s parents made call to Oxford High before violence

OXFORD TOWNSHIP, MICH. » A 15-year-old boy was charged Wednesday with murder, terrorism and other crimes for a shooting that killed four fellow students and injured others at a Michigan high school.

Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald did not reveal a possible motive for Tuesday’s violence at Oxford High School and declined to comment when pressed about whether she believed the victims were specifically targeted. But she said the shooting was premeditated, based in part on a “mountain of digital evidence” collected by police.

Sheriff Mike Bouchard later told reporters that the boy’s parents had been summoned to the school before the violence. Bouchard wouldn’t discuss details of the behavior school officials were concerned about. The teen, Ethan Crumbley, who is now charged as an adult with murder, attempted murder and terrorism causing death, was in the meeting with his parents, Bouchard said.

“There is nothing that he could have faced that would warrant senseless, absolutely brutal violence on other kids,” he said.

Ethan Crumbley is accused of firing a semiautomatic handgun in a school hallway, roughly 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Detroit. At least seven other people were injured. It wasn’t immediately known if Crumbley had an attorney who could comment.

“This was not just an impulsive act,” McDonald said.

The shooting should be a wake-up call for new gun laws in a country that has become “desensitized to school shootings,” McDonald told reporters.

“We have to do better,” McDonald said without offering specific changes. “How many times does this have to happen? How many times?”

The charges were announced a few hours after investigators reported that a fourth student had died.