New thread for updates on Michigan school shooting. Another update/News report see several posts down.

[Faith-manor]

I thought for those of you following this, it would be nice to have a fresh thread so you don't have to scroll so far for the day's updates.

One of the students who had been in serious condition was downgraded to critical,  and that breaks my heart. I cannot imagine being the parents and receiving that news.

Investigators report the shooter's parents are non-cooperative. Sigh. Dad bought the stupid gun at a Black Friday sale - happy Christmas to the Oxford Community 😠😠😠😠😠 - and a few days later, bam. So much for locking up his gun in such a way his kid couldn't use it.

Students escaped through windows, some grabbed scissors to use in self defense. A group of survivors made it almost to Meijer which is 1.5 miles from the school, and then felt guilty about leaving their fellow students and thought about going back. That just rips me apart. Our children should not have to face this. That is like being in a war zone! "Do I save myself and my buddy, or do I go back for the fallen?" These aren't trained marines here. They are kids. I weep. I really hope seasoned trauma counselors are being provided to all of the students, faculty, and staff.

Edited December 1, 2021 by Faith-manor

[Kassia]

3 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

 

Students escaped through windows, some grabbed scissors to use in self defense. A group of survivors made it almost to Meijer which is 1.5 miles from the school, and then felt guilty about leaving their fellow students and thought about going back. That just rips me apart. Our children should not have to face this. That is like being in a war zone! "Do I save myself and my buddy, or do I go back for the fallen?" These aren't trained marines here. They are kids. I weep. I really hope seasoned trauma counselors are being provided to all of the students, faculty, and staff.

This is what killed me with my son who was in a school shooting.  He was very close to where it happened and had to crawl to a back room where students were hiding and barricading the door.  The thought that he witnessed the shooting, feared for his own life and had to crawl for safety, and had to walk by the bodies after it was over just killed me.  Still does.  But he came home in one piece and that's what I hang on to.

I had a terrible childhood filled with trauma.  When people asked me how I was so "normal" I always said that raising my kids in a safe environment was what healed me.  The shooting ripped that away - what my son experienced that day was way worse than anything I went through.  And the ironic thing is we moved to this community because it was a safe place to raise kids.  I don't think places like that exist anymore.

I think/hope good trauma counselors will be available.  Unfortunately, this has happened so frequently now that there is better counseling and understanding than there was many years ago.  😞  I know our community was absolutely ripped apart by this shooting - suicides and overdoses went way up in the following years.  

This is just so so sad on every level.  Absolutely heartbreaking and I'm very sorry about it all.  

Edited December 1, 2021 by Kassia

[Pam in CT]

re it's not just the 3 dead kids and the 8 more still hospitalized  who are traumatized

23 minutes ago, Kassia said:

This is what killed me with my son who was in a school shooting.  He was very close to where it happened and had to crawl to a back room where students were hiding and barricading the door.  The thought that he witnessed the shooting, had to crawl for safety, and had to walk by the bodies after it was over just killed me.  Still does.  But he came home in one piece and that's what I hang on to.

I had a terrible childhood filled with trauma.  When people asked me how I was so "normal" I always said that raising my kids in a safe environment was what healed me.  The shooting ripped that away - what my son experienced that day was way worse than anything I went through.  And the ironic thing is we moved to this community because it was a safe place to raise kids.  I don't think places like that exist anymore.

I think/hope good trauma counselors will be available.  Unfortunately, this has happened so frequently now that there is better counseling and understanding than there was many years ago.  😞  I know our community was absolutely ripped apart by this shooting - suicides and overdoses went way up in the following years.  

This is just so so sad on every level.  Absolutely heartbreaking and I'm very sorry about it all.  

Yeah.

That was my response too when the Tree of Life story broke, three miles from my Jewish son whose whereabouts I could not ascertain for hours; or another all-too-credible white supremacist bomb threat at my younger daughter's boarding school minutes after the 2020 electoral results were finally called and which kept the whole school in lockdown for 30+ hours.

 

First response, pure adrenaline: WHERE IS MY CHILD WHERE IS MY CHILD WHERE IS MY CHILD

Second response, pure relief: MY CHILD IS OK

Third response, floodgates of guilt and grief  at that very, very-understandable reflex: OTHER CHILDREN ARE NOT OK, OTHER CHILDREN WILL NOT COME HOME

 

and then, weeks or months later, Fourth delayed realization: MY CHILD IS ACTUALLY NOT OK.

 

Because crawling to a windowless room and hauling furniture to barricade the door and crouching in silence for long minutes, or hours, hearing gunshot beyond the walls, imagining bodies strewn in the corridors, texting parents in panic: that is trauma too. Every *single* student, teacher and staff in a school that experiences a mass shooting suffers trauma.

 

Several years ago, in response to Tree of Life and Poway synagogue mass shootings, our synagogue along with many, many others across America stepped up security investments and training.

And the BoD, which I am on, had to develop shooter drills with the kids in the religious school so they too knew the procedures. But when we got ADL and police briefs on what live shooter drills entailed, there was consternation: we can't possibly do that, that will TERRIFY the kids, this is supposed to be a sanctuary, the kids will associate this space with trauma.

Well.

Yeah.

What lesson do you imagine the same kids are deriving from the active shooter drills every.single.one.of.them gets at their schools?  The drills themselves evoke trauma.

 

My Senator, who has always been a Canary in the Coal Mine   on this issue.

 

[Faith-manor]

Yes. I think we have to consider what it means for the mental health of our youth that the adults in this nation have been so reticent, so opposed to doing anything meaningful about this issue, that they are regularly traumatized in school with active shooter drills. These are not the "once a year everyone file out of school nice and slow, out to the playground, walk don't run, and teach will count heads out on the grass" fire drills. These are war zone scenarios not unlike some training military personnel would get in basic. W.t.a.f. is wrong with this nation!

I am so sorry for everyone who has been through something like this! It has to be so traumatizing to even read the thread. Would you all like me to ask the mods to delete it and just go elsewhere to do my venting and processing? I am willing to do that, and not offended.

[Idalou]

I read that some students stayed home because of what the killer posted on SM? And that he was the one responsible for threatening type graffiti at school a month or so ago, and for tossing a deer head somewhere on campus? 

[Pam in CT]

9 minutes ago, Idalou said:

I read that some students stayed home because of what the killer posted on SM? And that he was the one responsible for threatening type graffiti at school a month or so ago, and for tossing a deer head somewhere on campus? 

Associated Press has confirmed that some students were sufficiently rattled by SM threats that *they* took it seriously; but that school officials have represented that the graffiti & deer head perps are known to be other than the shooter.

[Kassia]

1 hour ago, Faith-manor said:

 

I am so sorry for everyone who has been through something like this! It has to be so traumatizing to even read the thread. Would you all like me to ask the mods to delete it and just go elsewhere to do my venting and processing? I am willing to do that, and not offended.

I am okay with it.  It's an important topic and we can't become desensitized to it as it happens over and over again.  What happened is so incredibly heartbreaking.

 

@Pam in CTwow, you nailed it.  Everything you wrote is absolutely correct and I wish I could have written it out the way you did.  I am so very sorry for your own experience with this, though.  

[Kassia]

I just read that a fourth child died.  This is just devastating.  

[lauraw4321]

It feels so risky to send my kids to school. It shouldn't be this way. So heartbreaking.

[Pam in CT]

52 minutes ago, Kassia said:

I am okay with it.  It's an important topic and we can't become desensitized to it as it happens over and over again.  What happened is so incredibly heartbreaking.

 

@Pam in CTwow, you nailed it.  Everything you wrote is absolutely correct and I wish I could have written it out the way you did.  I am so very sorry for your own experience with this, though.  

And I am so very sorry for yours. And your son's. And all his classmates, and those in Michigan, and those in Stoneman Douglas, and those in Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech and all the others in all the other schools back to Columbine, literally thousands of kids directly faced with in-the-moment trauma of their lives directly and threat; and tens of thousands more of their siblings and cousins and friends who know them personally and have the human capacity to imagine their way into what, apropos of the other thread, is very much an existential human experience.

May God shed grace upon them and protect them.

 

Because we aren't.

[Happy2BaMom]

3 hours ago, Kassia said:

 

I had a terrible childhood filled with trauma.  When people asked me how I was so "normal" I always said that raising my kids in a safe environment was what healed me.  The shooting ripped that away - what my son experienced that day was way worse than anything I went through.  And the ironic thing is we moved to this community because it was a safe place to raise kids.  I don't think places like that exist anymore.

 

They exist. Just not in the United States.

[Faith-manor]

Yes, a 17 year old boy is the 4th victim. I am holding hope that the other victim in serious condition does not take a turn for the worst. I am so grief stricken for the parents, but also raging angry. I just took that angry out on a broom and a dustpan. I figure better make the floor pay instead of my family members having to hear me rant and cry.

[Idalou]

 This killer most likely went through all the shooter drills that his classmates did. He supposedly tried to pass himself off a a sherrif to one group... What happens when the next killer is able to use that knowledge to their advantage?

[Faith-manor]

1 hour ago, Idalou said:

 This killer most likely went through all the shooter drills that his classmates did. He supposedly tried to pass himself off a a sherrif to one group... What happens when the next killer is able to use that knowledge to their advantage?

Yes. And it begs the question, "How responsible is it for these kinds of details to be released?" There is something to be said for not creating a playbook for the next sociopath.

ETA: typing on my kindle is 🙃

Edited December 1, 2021 by Faith-manor

[Faith-manor]

https://www.abc12.com/news/oxford-high-school-shooting-suspect-identified-facing-4-murder-charges/article_9d6ae5ae-52d7-11ec-b142-7b59c999e02b.html

The suspect had been identified and is facing life in prison, being tried as an adult.

Parents may be charged as well.

[lauraw4321]

1 hour ago, Idalou said:

 This killer most likely went through all the shooter drills that his classmates did. He supposedly tried to pass himself off a a sherrif to one group... What happens when the next killer is able to use that knowledge to their advantage?

How stupid that I never considered this. 😭😭😭

[KSera]

34 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Parents may be charged as well.

I hope so. It was his dad’s gun. If people are so adamant about keeping these kinds of weapons in their houses, they need to be held responsible when they fail to keep them secure. 

[kbutton]

4 hours ago, Pam in CT said:

Associated Press has confirmed that some students were sufficiently rattled by SM threats that *they* took it seriously; but that school officials have represented that the graffiti & deer head perps are known to be other than the shooter.

I didn't read the article, but I am appalled that the school wouldn't take it seriously even if they think it's a different student. In one of our local schools, a student reported another student's comments, and they turned out to be based on real comments but not a legit threat (we didn't get details, but I assume someone was flippant). With the entire situation, they emphasized that it's correct to report stuff. They will handle it, and they will dole out appropriate consequences proportional to what is truly happening. 

I don't understand a school blowing anything off. 

[Pam in CT]

re SM threats vs prior incidents with deer head & graffiti:

3 minutes ago, kbutton said:

I didn't read the article, but I am appalled that the school wouldn't take it seriously even if they think it's a different student. In one of our local schools, a student reported another student's comments, and they turned out to be based on real comments but not a legit threat (we didn't get details, but I assume someone was flippant). With the entire situation, they emphasized that it's correct to report stuff. They will handle it, and they will dole out appropriate consequences proportional to what is truly happening. 

I don't understand a school blowing anything off. 

The AP article I linked said that school authorities, in response to questions about the deer head and graffiti, had confirmed that they knew who'd been responsible for the deer head and graffiti, and that the shooter was not responsible for those prior acts.

The local press article that Faith just linked just above reports that the shooter's parents had been summoned to the school shortly prior to the shooting, possibly (?) in response to the SM threats:

Quote

Police have said that Crumbley and his parents have retained legal counsel and have not cooperated with investigators.

Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said Crumbley's parents were summoned to the high school before the shootings on Tuesday. He didn't provide details of what behavior administrators were concerned about, according to the Associated Press.

 

[kbutton]

14 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

The local press article that Faith just linked just above reports that the shooter's parents had been summoned to the school shortly prior to the shooting, possibly (?) in response to the SM threats:

That sounds more proactive, but if it was in response to SM threats, I would think they would've done something preventive anyway. The local school we were at sent people home early, IIRC. They have specific places they evacuate students to if they can't leave easily. 

[Pam in CT]

re shooter's parents reportedly summoned to the school shortly before yesterday's shooting

14 minutes ago, kbutton said:

That sounds more proactive, but if it was in response to SM threats, I would think they would've done something preventive anyway. The local school we were at sent people home early, IIRC. They have specific places they evacuate students to if they can't leave easily. 

One would hope so, if there were time to do so. There are enough gaps in the reporting that the sequence conceivably might have been as compressed as (I'm making these times & causality up; just running through a possible sequence consistent with the very limited reporting above)

• 7:30sm a student brings shooter's SM posts to administration's attention
• 7:35 administrators call parents in, urgently, just as buses are arriving
• 7:55 shooter himself arrives
• 8:00 someone walking past shooter's locker comments hey, just saw your parents in the principal's office
• 8:02 shooter completely loses it because his parents have been called in
• 8:03 shooter starts killing his classmates

I feel for school officials trying to sort through which threats are "real" and which are "JK, whassamatterwidyou, First Amendment," though.  There've been members of the United States Congress threatening violence against their colleagues on social media over the last ten months. It's been normalized, made jocular, even glorified as signalling team membership.  It's hard to hold a higher behavioral standard for high schoolers than we do for legislators.

[Faith-manor]

33 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

 

I feel for school officials trying to sort through which threats are "real" and which are "JK, whassamatterwidyou, First Amendment," though.  There've been members of the United States Congress threatening violence against their colleagues on social media over the last ten months. It's been normalized, made jocular, even glorified as signalling team membership.  It's hard to hold a higher behavioral standard for high schoolers than we do for legislators.

This. They are mimicking the adult culture around them. And they mimic what their parents are bellowing, and their grandparents, and the preacher, and the guy at the auto dealer,  and...

If every single time a student threatened another student, the bus driver, the school, the coach, you name it, my local district would be closed every single week. Maybe that is where we are at. Here is community college online free or some money to drive your kid to campus and pay the tuition bill. It sucks; it isn't good. It is probably better than the alternative. Put into an environment that is less about "socialization" and more about going to class, more about finding your own tribe and less about being assigned a tribe, has more mentoring options, more coursework options, and usually more counseling/crisis options - even our worst CC had several licensed therapists and some trauma and PTSD counselors plus a health center - maybe they will be less likely to go ballistic. And maybe I am too upset to even be thinking clearly. There is that too!

[Corraleno]

Police say they have recovered two cell phone videos and a diary in which Ethan talked about his plans to shoot up the school and murder students. The prosecutor says they are also considering charges against the parents. 

Ironically, the shooter's mother wrote a blog post a few years ago in which she thanked the previous president for protecting her right to bear arms and she complained about schools where "kids come from illegal immigrant parents. Most of their parents are locked up. They don’t care about learning and threaten to kill [the teacher] for caring about their grades." She signed the post "A hard working Middle Class Law Abiding Citizen who is sick of getting f***ed in the ass and would rather be grabbed by the pussy."

Charming.

[Elfknitter.#]

11 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Police say they have recovered two cell phone videos and a diary in which Ethan talked about his plans to shoot up the school and murder students. The prosecutor says they are also considering charges against the parents. 

Ironically, the shooter's mother wrote a blog post a few years ago in which she thanked the previous president for protecting her right to bear arms and she complained about schools where "kids come from illegal immigrant parents. Most of their parents are locked up. They don’t care about learning and threaten to kill [the teacher] for caring about their grades." She signed the post "A hard working Middle Class Law Abiding Citizen who is sick of getting f***ed in the ass and would rather be grabbed by the pussy."

Charming.

Wow... just wow.

[KSera]

10 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Charming.

Wow. Charming is right. How do we know this is her post though? The blog is otherwise empty. Whoever wrote it is all over the board with contradictions about what they want from their government, and other than the strong anti-immigrant sentiment, I have no idea where she got the idea she was going to get the things that were important to her from the previous administration. Makes no sense.

[Faith-manor]

14 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Police say they have recovered two cell phone videos and a diary in which Ethan talked about his plans to shoot up the school and murder students. The prosecutor says they are also considering charges against the parents. 

Ironically, the shooter's mother wrote a blog post a few years ago in which she thanked the previous president for protecting her right to bear arms and she complained about schools where "kids come from illegal immigrant parents. Most of their parents are locked up. They don’t care about learning and threaten to kill [the teacher] for caring about their grades." She signed the post "A hard working Middle Class Law Abiding Citizen who is sick of getting f***ed in the ass and would rather be grabbed by the pussy."

Charming.

Well isn't she speeeeeeeecial. 😱

The apple did not fall far from the tree. If this is what she was willing to say in print on social media, it takes no imagination to figure out what she said within earshot of her kid in private.

I definitely think charges for her are appropriate!

[Pam in CT]

re putative maternal blog post

7 minutes ago, KSera said:

Wow. Charming is right. How do we know this is her post though? The blog is otherwise empty. Whoever wrote it is all over the board with contradictions about what they want from their government, and other than the strong anti-immigrant sentiment, I have no idea where she got the idea she was going to get the things that were important to her from the previous administration. Makes no sense.

Yeah, that single-post blog has all the hallmarks of fake.  I mean, the *vitriol and hate* registers as real enough, but everything else -- an entire blog with just one post?  With nothing whatsoever filled into the About section?  whose sole post is all over the freaking map, whose sole feedback comment since 11/2016 is a lady claiming also to be from Michigan hawking apothecary products? 

Maybe, but, also, maybe not.

[Corraleno]

15 minutes ago, KSera said:

Wow. Charming is right. How do we know this is her post though? The blog is otherwise empty. Whoever wrote it is all over the board with contradictions about what they want from their government, and other than the strong anti-immigrant sentiment, I have no idea where she got the idea she was going to get the things that were important to her from the previous administration. Makes no sense.

 

1 minute ago, Pam in CT said:

re putative maternal blog post

Yeah, that single-post blog has all the hallmarks of fake.  I mean, the *vitriol and hate* registers as real enough, but everything else -- an entire blog with just one post?  With nothing whatsoever filled into the About section?  whose sole post is all over the freaking map, whose sole feedback comment since 11/2016 is a lady claiming also to be from Michigan hawking apothecary products? 

Maybe, but, also, maybe not.

 

Her husband linked to the blog post when she first wrote it:

 

Edited December 1, 2021 by Corraleno

[Pam in CT]

Huh. Well, I expect the parents are lawyering up.  And it that really is the real father's account really linking the real mother's blog post, we'll know soon, when they both come down.

[Faith-manor]

Just now, Pam in CT said:

Huh. Well, I expect the parents are lawyering up.  And it that really is the real father's account really linking the real mother's blog post, we'll know soon, when they both come down.

Yes I am sure in the next day or two someone will investigate this and explain.

This though, this kind of thing is normal in my neck of the woods. People say this stuff aloud, in faces, at school board meetings. No one nationally knows until something like this horror goes down because this is a largely ignored area of the country. Michigan, when it comes to news, is Detroit and burbs, Lansing,  Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids and sometimes richyrich Traverse City, and everything else including the UP is unheard of until the fall color maps come out or somebody transports nuclear waste across the International Bridge. Literally, there is a lot of very scary sh*t going down in the rural areas and small villages and towns.

[Corraleno]

3 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

Huh. Well, I expect the parents are lawyering up.  And it that really is the real father's account really linking the real mother's blog post, we'll know soon, when they both come down.

It's his real account, it includes photos of himself, his wife, and Ethan going back to 2011, and it lists an accurate job and location history. It's where the media are getting all the photos of Ethan as a kid.

[Sneezyone]

If ever there was a time to charge the parents, this sounds like *it*.

[Fritz]

According to this report the parents were atthe school 2-3 hours before the shooting. If that's the case why the hell did the dad not go home and check to make sure the gun was secure? Yes, they need to be charged too.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/michigan-prosecutor-announces-charges-suspected-school-shooter

[KSera]

35 minutes ago, Fritz said:

According to this report the parents were atthe school 2-3 hours before the shooting. If that's the case why the hell did the dad not go home and check to make sure the gun was secure? Yes, they need to be charged too.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/michigan-prosecutor-announces-charges-suspected-school-shooter

Are news outlets still showing pictures of the perpetrators of these things? I had hoped they’d stopped doing that.  None of the outlets I’ve read about it in so far have shown his picture. I have seen pictures of the victims, which is heartbreaking.  AP News coverage mentioned the blog post above in their story.