OXFORD, Mich. – The Oxford High School shooter has pleaded guilty and will never get out of prison.
His mother has been convicted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with her son’s actions, and now his father is set to go to trial for involuntary manslaughter.
The parents of Oxford High School football star Tate Myre, who was killed that terrible day, see this as a four-step process. The fourth step would be seeing the Oxford School District in court for a civil trial—and that is an uphill legal climb because school districts have governmental immunity.
“I didn’t want to file a lawsuit, that’s not how we roll,” said Buck Myre.
What happened after their son was killed changed everything. Myre says the school district put up roadblocks from the get-go and resisted a third-party investigation for more than a year.
When an investigation was done, the results found everything that happened could have been prevented, and it was a failure from the top down.
“This report that was paid for by the school district is binding to the district and is so damning,” why are we even in a lawsuit with these people,” said attorney Ven Johnson.
Johnson has filed suit both at the state and federal level and is challenging the district’s governmental immunity.
“Without any question, in my opinion, the Oxford community schools has gotten horrible advice from somebody,” Johnson said.
Bad feelings over how the district has handled this have bubbled up at school board meetings for months.
For Myre, there will be no reckoning without the Crumbly family and the district facing accountability. Recently, the current school board made the move to sue its insurance company; Johnson says that it signals the realization the district has bungled its response to the shooting.
For Myre, he told Local 4 he needs one thing to help move his family forward. “I want to hear a sincere we failed, we’re sorry.”