PONTIAC, Mich. – A student who was shot in the Oxford High School shooting delivered a victim impact statement in court on Friday during the shooter’s sentencing hearing.
On Nov. 30, 2021, a 15-year-old sophomore at Oxford High School brought a gun to the building and opened fire, killing four students -- 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana, 16-year-old Tate Myre, 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin, and 17-year-old Justin Shilling -- and injured seven other people.
---> Live updates: Sentencing hearing for Oxford High School shooter
In October 2022, the shooter pleaded guilty to 24 felony charges. Judge Kwamé Rowe has ruled that the shooter is eligible to be sentenced to life in prison without parole, despite his age. The shooter’s sentencing hearing began Friday, Dec. 8.
Survivors and others impacted by the deadly shooting were invited to deliver victim impact statements during the sentencing hearing. Riley Franz, a student who was shot in the Oxford school shooting, was among those who provided victim impact statements.
---> Students shot by Oxford shooter share emotional statements at sentencing hearing
Her full statement is written below and available in the video player above:
“I have contemplated how to put Nov. 30, 2021, into words since the day it took place. How to verbally acknowledge the day’s impact, terror, sorrow, and tragedy. How to make a victim’s impact statement, quite literally. I would love nothing more than to stand up here and say that I have overcome the obstacles of that day and have continued to live my everyday life. But that would be a lie.
“Nov. 30 has altered my life in every single aspect. It has changed and molded the way I think, the way I feel, and the way I act. I can no longer sleep without having flashbacks of a bullet entering one side of my neck and exiting the other.
“I feel limited on what I can do at 19 years old because of the thoughts running through my head. My entire existence has been consumed by fear that I will once again have to experience the pain, the suffering, that I felt on Nov. 30. I used to love attending school where I would learn and create connections with others. I now experience panic attacks nearly every day when I have to attend university.
“I can no longer sit in a classroom and focus and take notes like many students around me. When I am at school I feel anxious, checking for all my exits, highly attuned with all movement inside and outside the classroom -- flinching at every sound from the walking up stairs to a pencil dropping. And counting down the minutes until I feel that I can breathe again.
“I cannot remember what it’s like to feel safe and secure in any space that I occupy. I often cancel plans because I fear leaving the comfort of my home and my family. On the days that I can’t get out of bed because I’m afraid when I’m sitting in a restaurant or a classroom or even walking to my car. The unimaginable will happen again.
“When a balloon pops, a car backfires, or people run past me. My thoughts have been consumed by fear while my body is constantly in survival mode. I mourn the life I once had, which my selfless parents worked so hard to create for my sister and me. Free of hardship, pain, and worry. A life filled with opportunities, and fearlessness. I feel the structure that my parents created was burned to the ground that day.
“Everything I had the privilege of not feeling or fearing is now my daily life. I mourn the childish wonder and carelessness stripped from my little sister -- the most fantastic person I’ve had the privilege of sharing life with. I mourn the person I used to be because although I survived, the original pieces of me didn’t I will never have the opportunity to experience life like I used to -- with so much joy and clarity.
“The scariest part of Nov. 30 for me was not the day itself, but the days that followed. On the days I feel like I’m not occupying my body, but watching it from above I feel I cannot breathe because I’m paralyzed in a world no one who hasn’t experienced something like this could ever imagine.
“Pieces of me shattered that day and two years later I am still struggling to put them back into place. But every day I choose not to allow what a selfish individual decided to do to break me.
“I, Riley Franz, am a survivor of gun violence. I, Riley Franz, am a survivor of a terrible epidemic caused by a broken system. But I refuse to be known as a victim at the hands of an individual with no regard for others.
“His selfishness will not consume my identity. I am so much more than a victim. I’m a daughter to the most amazing parents, Jeff and Brandy, I’m a sister to the most remarkable young woman I have ever met, Isabella. I am a friend, a classmate, a cousin, a granddaughter, but most importantly, I am a person.
“I am a person who deserved a chance to make it to her fifth class that day. I’m a person who deserved to not run in fear while she bled out. Someone who deserved to not have to answer a phone call from her little sister asking if she was safe. I deserved to be a child that day. A student who made it to her class, not someone’s target practice.
“I would never wish what I experienced upon anyone in this world. What my family experienced that day. What I continue to battle daily. No child should have to fear that their school will be next. That they need to know what to do if the worst breaks out in front of them. Children should attend school focused on their studies, friends, aspirations and dreams.
“No parent should have to worry that their child is unsafe at a place that they are supposed to learn and prosper. Students should no longer have to learn lockdown drills, instead we should work harder to create a system that prevents gun violence and prevents children’s lives from being stripped away -- leaving only pieces behind.”