Posted on 12/01/21
| News Source: Washington Post
A 15-year-old who opened fire on classmates at a Michigan high school, killing four and injuring seven, was charged on Wednesday as an adult with one count of terrorism and four counts of first-degree murder.
The news came shortly after the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that a fourth victim, a 17-year-old, had died this morning at McLaren Oakland Hospital in Pontiac, Mich.
“There are facts leading up in the shooting that suggest this was not just an impulsive act,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said. She said “charging this person as an adult is necessary to achieve justice and protect the public. Any other option would put all of us at risk of this person because they could be released and still a threat.”
The four people slain were identified as 17-year-old Justin Shilling, who died Wednesday; 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana; 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin and 16-year-old Tate Myre, who died in a patrol car Tuesday while sheriff’s deputies were taking him to a hospital.
The suspected gunman, Ethan Crumbley, is a 15-year-old sophomore at Oxford High School who attended class before the attack, officials said. Law enforcement officials say the suspect’s father purchased the pistol on Nov. 26, just days before the shooting, but they declined to say how Crumbley then obtained the gun.
Crumbley was charged with a host of felonies – one count of terrorism causing death, four counts of first degree murder, seven counts of assault with intent to murder and 12 counts of possession of a firearm – and a judge ordered him transferred from a youth detention facility to a county jail. McDonald said additional charges could be added later, and charges against both of his parents are under consideration.
McDonald said she could not offer much detail because she did not want to jeopardize the investigation, but said she was confident the acts were planned.
“There is a mountain of digital evidence: videotape, social media, all digital evidence possible,” she said. “We have reviewed it and we are confident we can show it was premeditation.”
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said authorities learned Wednesday that on the morning of the shooting, the suspect’s parents were brought in to the school and had a face to face meeting with school officials. School personnel also had a meeting with the suspect the day prior for “behavior in the classroom that they felt was concerning.”
Bouchard said the content of the meetings is part of the investigation. He added that prior to those meetings, there was “nothing in his file” on concerning behavior or discipline.
The mass shooting appears to be the deadliest episode of on-campus violence in more than 18 months, a period when instruction shifted online during the coronavirus pandemic and school shootings largely dropped out of headlines.
In Oxford, members of the community were reeling from the previous day’s events. Students from the high school recalled the moments as the horror unfolded: screams in the hallway, teachers urging students to move away from doors. Recent alumni expressed concern about friends who were injured – and the shock of seeing their own school’s name at the center of a tragedy.
Jamie Miller, who graduated from Oxford High School last year, said the only way to describe the news is “unreal.”
“You see school shootings all over the news, and it’s terrible,” she said. “Then you see your school in the headlines, and names of people you know. It just doesn’t make sense.”
The gun taken from the suspect, a 9mm pistol with three 15-round magazines, was purchased by the suspect’s father last week, four days before the shooting, according to Bouchard.
The suspect had 18 rounds left, including rounds that were loose in his pocket. More than 30 shots were fired, Bouchard said on Wednesday.
It is illegal under Michigan laws for someone younger than 18 to possess a gun in public. In schools, it is illegal to carry a concealed gun, and some school districts in the state also ban open carry.
Oxford High School junior Olivia Hoffman had just sat down in her fifth-hour class when she heard screaming in the hallway. A fellow student, who was not in her class, burst into the classroom in a panic.
“She seemed like she didn’t know whether to come in for shelter or keep running,” Hoffman said. “She turned and ran.”
A quick-thinking student shut and locked the door, and the teacher instructed the students to sit in the corner of the classroom away from the door, she recounted.
That’s when they heard the gunshots. “It sounded like the shots were right outside the door,” she said.
Hoffman was scared for herself, of course. But it was the screams outside the door she remembers most. “I was scared and worried for the people around me, the people in the hallway,” she said.
Max Charltom, who graduated two years ago, said his friend was shot during the attack and is now on life support.
“You never expect this to happen, not in a backwater town like this,” he said. But, he added, the incident has shown what a tightknit community Oxford is. “Everyone is coming together,” he said. “Working together and supporting each other.”
According to the Giffords Law Center, a gun violence-prevention group that publishes information about gun laws, Michigan ranks 20th in the nation for states with the strongest gun laws.
“Michigan laws are certainly not the weakest in the country, but they could be a lot stronger,” Allison Anderman, the center’s senior counsel, said in an interview Tuesday night.
Anderman noted that school shootings are still exceptionally rare compared with other types of shootings. Yet in most school shootings, the weapon is a firearm left unsecured in the home.
Since 2018, when 17 people were killed during a shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school, many states have passed legislation making it more difficult for children to access firearms.
Eleven states have laws concerning firearm-locking devices, including Michigan, in an attempt to reduce the risk of guns falling into the hands of children or criminals, according to the Giffords Law Center. Michigan does not require firearm owners to lock their weapons.
Many of Oxford High School’s 1,800 students are now grappling with “what ifs” in the aftermath of the shooting in this quiet town that is home to 22,000 people. When a bullet pierced the door of an AP statistics class, senior Kristina Myers said she and her classmates began piling desks in front of the door and passing out calculators to potentially throw at the gunman should he enter the room.
“If my teacher didn’t close the door when she did,” Myers said, “our class would have been dead.”