OXFORD, Mich. – An investigative report detailing what happened during and before the Oxford High School shooting is expected to be released on Monday afternoon, officials said, nearly two years after the massacre.
Parents and families in the Oxford Community Schools District have been frustrated by the lack of information from the school board in the wake of the 2021 mass shooting, in which four students were murdered and seven people were injured. Parents have criticized the district for offering few details, and for taking some time to coordinate a report.
The school board had declined several offers made by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel to conduct a third-party investigation after the mass shooting occurred. Eventually, the board was pressured to hire an outside firm to conduct an investigation, and its report is expected to be released in the afternoon of Monday, Oct. 30.
The school board said the report will be made available to the board and to the public at the same time, but the community and school board members said in August they still have lingering questions and doubts about the process.
A letter was provided to the board of education months ago in an effort to provide clarity on the upcoming release of the third-party investigation into the Oxford shooting -- but board members wanted more than what they saw on that paper. The board asked for more clarity on things like the scope of the investigation, and how the contract was pulled together to begin with.
Some school board members described the investigation process as messy, and say they’d like an outside legal opinion on how it’s been structured. Former school board president Tom Donnelly had resigned during the process, and said during an August board meeting that he fought to make sure the contract was done right, and knows why the contract “is the way it is.”
On the other side, parents wonder if the incoming report will even offer valuable information following such a complicated process. Some parents expressed concern over whether they’d see everything that the report uncovered.
Details about the shooter and the shooting have slowly been revealed over the last year and a half in courtrooms and court documents. But, with allegations against school staff and administrators accused of not doing enough to help prevent the shooting, the community wants answers from the district itself.
The report’s release comes just before the Oxford shooter is scheduled to be sentenced in early December for his 24 felony convictions related to the 2021 massacre. An Oakland County judge ruled in September that the shooter, a minor convicted as an adult, can be sentenced to life in prison without parole despite his age.
The shooter’s official sentencing hearing is scheduled for Dec. 8, during which victims will be allowed to make impact statements. Because of the shooter’s terrorism conviction, there are potentially more than 2,000 victims who must be allowed the chance to speak, the judge said, though it’s unknown how many people will make statements.
The shooter’s parent are both facing four counts of involuntary manslaughter for each student murdered by their son in the shooting. The mother and father are officially heading to trial after the Michigan Supreme Court denied their appeal request to get their case through out.
The parents -- also lodged at the Oakland County Jail but kept separate from their son -- asked the court to allow them to attend the shooter’s sentencing hearing. That request was denied.