Oxford parents renew call for state probe of mass school shooting

• Parents of Oxford students killed in 2021 mass shooting again call for a state probe of the school, officials
• Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel says local authorities have not cooperated in a way that allows her to launch a probe
• The shooter and his parents were both sentenced to prison following the death of four students. 

Parents of Oxford High School students killed in a 2021 mass shooting on Monday renewed a call for a state investigation into the shooting, including failures by school officials to prevent the attack. 

Attorney General Dana Nessel, however, maintained she still has not received the cooperation from local officials necessary to begin an outside inquiry.

Parents of the four children killed in the shooting held a press conference Monday as a “call to action” for the state to conduct a “comprehensive” investigation of actions before and after the shooting, said Buck Myre, the father of student Tate Myre, who was killed in the shooting.

While the teen shooter and his parents are already in prison, Myre said a state investigation could “fill in the blanks and missing pieces to establish a data-driven base to create real countermeasures … to save our kids.”

Fourteen-year-old Hana St. Juliana, 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin and 17-year-old Justin Shilling were also killed in the shooting. Another seven people were injured.

Twelve days before the third anniversary of the shooting, no investigation has been conducted into the shooting that included review of key school and law enforcement officials. The parents of shooting victims have maintained calls for a more exhaustive investigation that looks into the school’s actions ahead of the shooting and law enforcement’s response. 

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“We don’t care. Get the job done,” said Steve St. Juliana, the father of Hana St. Juliana. He called on Nessel, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and legislative leaders to get together and make an investigation happen.

“Because it's not a matter of if the school shooting happens again, but when,” St. Juliana added, because “we haven’t learned a thing from” the shooting.

In a press call with reporters Monday afternoon, Nessel defended her own efforts to conduct a third-party review of the shooting, noting she had been repeatedly rebuffed by the Oxford school board, Oakland County sheriff and prosecutor. 

Her department has “never withdrawn” an offer for “an investigation into the procedures, policies and response leading to that fatal day,” Nessel said.

Years after the shooting, that offer does come with a litany of preconditions. Those include an invitation from local law enforcement to investigate, for the Oxford School board to waive attorney-client privilege, to have the sheriff’s department and prosecutor to turn over all their evidence and for broad witness cooperation.

School officials had indications the shooter, then 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley, was troubled ahead of the shooting, most pointedly by finding a drawing on a math worksheet that included a gun, a bloody body and the words "The thoughts won't stop. Help me."

Crumbley was confronted in a meeting with school administrators and his parents about the drawings on the day of the shooting, but he was allowed to return to class. Two hours later he pulled a gun from his backpack and began firing.

The Oxford school district hired a firm called Guidepost Solutions to conduct an independent investigation, but the report didn’t include cooperation from key individuals tied to the shooting, including the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department and school administrators who confronted Crumbley on the day of the shooting.

Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald had previously released a memorandum asserting Nessel could conduct an investigation without invitation from her office. Nessel said Monday McDonald has never reached out to her. Staff from McDonald’s office along with Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard were standing behind parents at the press conference as a gesture of solidarity.

Nessel asked Bouchard rhetorically, “why did you prevent us from assisting you and being part of this investigation in the first place, but now you're calling for us to investigate?”

Oxford’s School board had also previously declined to give the attorney general permission to open an inquiry, which Nessel had previously said she required. The board’s composition changed in recent elections, and in August, members asked the state to investigate, but Nessel made no commitments. 

Nessel claimed the resources required to complete an investigation before leaving office at the end of 2026 would stretch her department thin, and suggested the Legislature should allocate funding for the undertaking.

Crumbley, the Oxford school shooter, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to all charges brought against him. His parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, were also charged and later convicted of involuntary manslaughter, in a first for a school shooting in the US.