A Michigan judge has ruled that staff and administrators at Oxford High School cannot be sued for a mass shooting that left four students dead and seven others wounded.
\nOakland County Circuit Judge Mary Ellen Brennan also dismissed Oxford Community Schools from civil lawsuits related to the shooting, stating that the district and staff are protected by governmental immunity.
\nAuthorities have accused Ethan Crumbley, 16, of using a semi-automatic handgun to open fire Nov. 30, 2021 on other teenagers in the hallway at the school roughly 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Detroit. The four students who were killed were 16-year-old Tate Myre, 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana, 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin and 17-year-old Justin Shilling.
\nCrumbley, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, pleaded guilty in October to terrorism and first-degree murder charges. Prosecutors have said they\u2019ll seek a life sentence with no chance for parole.
\nSchool officials have been criticized by the county sheriff and Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald for not alerting a school resource officer about their concerns with Crumbley and not searching the teen\u2019s backpack before allowing him to return to class about three hours before the shooting.<\/p>\n
The day before the shooting, a teacher saw Crumbley looking at ammunition on his phone while in class. School officials left a voicemail informing his mother about it. On the morning of the shooting, Crumbley\u2019s parents were summoned to the school and confronted with his drawings, which included a handgun and the words: \u201cThe thoughts won\u2019t stop. Help me.\u201d
\nAuthorities said his parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, refused to take him home after the 13-minute meeting and were told to get him counseling.
\nA lawyer representing some families of the victims who filed the lawsuit has said some teachers and a counselor at the high school were aware of Crumbley\u2019s troubling interest in guns and violence months before the mass shooting.
\nBut Brennan placed the responsibility on Crumbley, writing in Friday\u2019s order that \u201cthe court concludes that Ethan Crumbley\u2019s act of firing the gun, rather than the alleged conduct of the individual Oxford defendants, was \u2018the one most immediate, efficient, and direct cause of the injury or damage.\u2019\u201d
\nDetroit-based attorney Ven Johnson said he plans to appeal Brennan\u2019s ruling to the Michigan Court of Appeals.
\n\u201cOn behalf of our Oxford clients, we are deeply saddened and disappointed by Judge Brennan\u2019s dismissal today of all the Oxford Community Schools defendants,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe maintain that governmental immunity is wrong and unconstitutional, and the law should be changed immediately.\u201d
\nA group of Oxford parents and students who filed a federal lawsuit seeking a court-ordered safety plan for schools in the district says \u201csome schools will hide behind governmental immunity to protect themselves instead of our students and children.\u201d
\n\u201cAs long as governmental immunity completely shields schools like Oxford, it will only serve to deny families transparency, justice, and accountability,\u201d Change 4 Oxford said in a statement. \u201cWithout real change, our schools\u2019 incentive to truly improve safety policies will remain limited due to their ability to hide behind immunity when future tragedies occur.\u201d
\nBrennan\u2019s ruling doesn\u2019t apply to Ethan Crumbley and his parents, who also are named in the civil lawsuit.
\nMcDonald, the prosecutor, also charged James and Jennifer Crumbley with involuntary manslaughter, accusing them of failing to keep the gun used in the shooting secure at home and failing to reasonably care for their son when he showed signs of mental distress.
\nMichigan\u2019s Supreme Court ordered the state appeals court to hear an appeal from the couple who face trial.<\/p>\n
Apnews<\/p>\n
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