Some Michigan State University students who survived Monday\u2019s mass shooting \u2013 and their parents \u2013 had already been through a similar, horrific experience.
\n\u201c(Fourteen) months ago I had to evacuate from Oxford High School when a fifteen year old opened fire and killed four of my classmates and injured seven more. Tonight, I am sitting under my desk at Michigan State University, once again texting everyone \u2018I love you,\u2019\u201d Emma Riddle, a freshman studying history at the university tweeted overnight Monday. \u201cWhen will this end?\u201d
\nHer father, Matt Riddle, told CNN Tuesday his daughter survived the November 30, 2021, shooting at Oxford High School in a community about 80 miles northeast of the MSU campus in East Lansing.
\nThere, another gunman opened fired Monday night, killing three students and wounding five others and sending terrified students running or escaping out of windows while others barricaded themselves inside classrooms. The shooter died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.
\nEmma Riddle survived the first shooting in Oxford by hiding in the band hall where others had barricaded the door before eventually fleeing to a store in the area, her father said, recalling the phone call he got as she ran away.
\nLess than a year and a half later, his daughter called again, Matt Riddle said \u2013 this time hiding in her dorm at Michigan State.
\n\u201cShe was very fearful and scared,\u201d Matt Riddle told CNN. \u201cAnd shocked. She has been through this before. I just talked to her and tried to make her feel calm.\u201d
\nIn the hours after the shots rang out, as hundreds of police officers converged on the school to search for the gunman, the father and daughter exchanged texts and phone calls.
\n\u201cNot knowing what was happening and the danger was hard,\u201d Riddle said.
\n\u2018I have the tools to work through this\u2019
\nAndrea Ferguson told CNN affiliate WDIV her daughter and other classmates were also survivors of both shootings.
\n\u201cI never expected in my lifetime to have to experience two school shootings,\u201d Ferguson said. \u201cThere\u2019s several kids there that our daughter\u2019s friends with that are going through the same thing.\u201d
\nCNN has reached out to Ferguson for comment.
\nHer daughter, Ava, a freshman, told \u201cCNN This Morning\u201d on Wednesday that the MSU shooting compounded her trauma from the 2021 tragedy.
\n\u201cAfter Oxford they said that this wasn\u2019t going to happen again, that we were going to be safe going back to school, and that\u2019s just not the case,\u201d Ava Ferguson said. \u201cThe other night, I was in shock. I didn\u2019t think it was real, honestly.\u201d
\nFerguson said the latest shooting was \u201ctraumatizing all over again\u201d and she\u2019s \u201cstill a little like shaken up by it.\u201d
\n\u201cThere should have been laws made here years ago \u2013 when Sandy Hook happened \u2013 and it never did,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I feel like now\u2019s the time people need to start realizing there is people dying every day because of gun violence and something needs to be done about it.\u201d
\nAva Ferguson said she is a cancer survivor and had only been on the MSU campus for a few weeks.
\nHer mother told WDIV that Ava was getting on a bus on another part of campus on Monday when she started receiving texts about the shooting.
\n\u201cIt was like reliving Oxford all over again,\u201d said Ferguson, who had been on the phone with her daughter when the young woman received texts about the latest mass shooting.
\nThe mother described her daughter as \u201cunbelievably terrified\u201d and said it was \u201creally, really surreal\u201d to relive such a horrific experience.
\nUS Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, said it was haunting to see a young person wearing an \u201cOxford Strong\u201d sweatshirt in footage from MSU after Monday\u2019s shooting.
\n\u201cAs a representative of Oxford, Michigan, I cannot believe that I\u2019m here again doing this 15 months later,\u201d Slotkin said during a news conference Tuesday. \u201cAnd I am filled with rage that we have to have another press conference to talk about our children being killed in their schools.\u201d
\nShe added, \u201cWe have children in Michigan who are living through their second school shooting in under a year and a half. If this is not a wake-up call to do something, I don\u2019t know what is.\u201d
\n\u201cI feel for our children and young people,\u201d East Lansing Mayor Ron Bacon told CNN on Tuesday.
\n\u201cWe now have a complete generation that has grown up with this, many times over, from elementary all the way up to now, they live with this the entire time,\u201d Bacon added.
\nMonday\u2019s assault occurred hours before the five-year anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It marked the 67th mass shooting \u2013 with four or more shot, not including a gunman \u2013 in 2023, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.
\nOakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard confirmed deputies from his office responded to both the Oxford High and MSU shootings.
\n\u201cSo very many thoughts are running through my head right now after being on Michigan State\u2019s campus last night during the tragedy,\u201d he tweeted Tuesday.
\n\u201cTo our Oxford community, I know that this is terribly traumatic. Know that we are here for you.\u201d
\nAs for Emma Riddle, her father drove from his home in Oxford to the Michigan State campus to pick up his daughter and her roommate. Emma is home for now until classes resume, he said, and she is working through the trauma.
\n\u201cShe is OK \u2013 as OK as she can be,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was heartbreaking, as a parent, because she said \u2018I have tools to work through this. I have been through this before so I know how to process this.\u2019\u201d
\nRiddle advised other parents in the same situation as his family to just let their children know they aren\u2019t alone.
\n\u201cJust being there for them, no matter what they need,\u201d he said. \u201cAs much as you are able don\u2019t let them be alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cnn<\/p>\n
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Some Michigan State University students who survived Monday\u2019s mass shooting \u2013 and their parents \u2013 had already been through a similar, horrific experience. \u201c(Fourteen) months ago I had to evacuate from Oxford High School when a fifteen year old opened fire and killed four of my classmates and injured seven more. Tonight, I am sitting under my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5931,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[1868,2458,1375],"class_list":["post-5930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-michigan","tag-some","tag-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5932,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5930\/revisions\/5932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}