OXFORD, Mich. – After two years and two trials, the parents of the Oxford High School shooter have both been held accountable for their roles in the massacre -- but the parents of the four students murdered in the shooting say the recent convictions are only the beginning.
A jury last week found James Crumbley, father of the Oxford shooter, guilty of four involuntary manslaughter charges stemming from the four children murdered by his son on Nov. 30, 2021. Crumbley’s wife, Jennifer, was found guilty of the same four charges just a few weeks earlier.
At two separate trials, Oakland County prosecutors successfully proved that the parents were grossly negligent and failed to take action that could’ve prevented the shooting. Prosecutors specifically focused on how the parents purchased the murder weapon just days before the shooting and did not lock it or prevent their son from accessing it -- even amid the shooter’s apparent mental health struggles at the time.
As of March 14, both parents were determined to be partly at fault for the deaths of 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana; 16-year-old Tate Myre; 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin; and 17-year-old Justin Shilling. The Oxford shooter himself was convicted in 2022 of four counts of first-degree murder, as well as 20 other felony charges. He’s since been sentenced to life in prison without parole.
But some say the shooter and his parents aren’t the only people who hold responsibility for the mass shooting. The families of the students who were shot and killed that day are still looking to hold the school district and its administrators responsible one way or another.
“While we are grateful that James and Jennifer Crumbley were found guilty, we want to be very clear that this is just the beginning of our quest for justice and true accountability,” the victims’ parents said Monday in a joint statement. “There is so much more that needs to be done to ensure other families in Michigan and across the country don’t experience the pain that we feel and we will not stop until real change is made.”
The parents have formed a group called The Families For Change, through which they’re working with local and state officials in hopes of driving “lasting change and true accountability” after the shooting. The group on Monday, March 18 announced several actions they’re hoping can be addressed by the state of Michigan.
The Families For Change are recommending the “creation of a state agency focused on firearm violence prevention.” The group is also asking that “statewide task forces and commissions” execute the following (as written by the group):
- Investigate the response to the shooting.
- Develop the framework for fully-funded, mandatory statewide threat assessment policies and procedures that include the structure and resources to oversee and hold schools accountable for implementation.
- Support legislation requiring independent investigations and after-action reports immediately following any mass shootings.
- Review and revise the terms of governmental immunity in the state of Michigan.
The parents -- and many others in the community -- have taken issue with the fact that school staff members and administrators are protected from criminal charges due to governmental immunity. A school counselor and administrator who interacted with the shooter just hours before the massacre both took the stand at the trials of the Crumbley parents, but they aren’t facing any charges themselves.
Even Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald told jurors that she doesn’t agree with how the school staff handled the situation with the shooter. Still, the prosecutor’s office said previously that it wouldn’t be prosecuting school staff or officials in connection with the shooting.
---> What we learned about Oxford counselor’s meeting with parents, shooter amid mother’s trial
The district and some of those school staff members, however, are at the center of a federal lawsuit brought by the victims’ families.
“We cannot allow districts like Oxford Community Schools to hide behind immunity where the facts are clear that gross negligence exists,” The Families For Change said Monday. ”We want safe and sound schools that we can trust. Government immunity undermines that responsibility and compromises our children’s safety.”
The group of parents on Monday requested the “immediate removal” of board members who were “leading the district” at the time of the shooting. The group says it wants an investigation into the school district itself, as well.
“The Oxford community deserves board members it can trust to keep its children safe and move it forward,” the group said.
The group’s frustration toward the district isn’t uncommon: Many Oxford community members expressed frustration over the lack of information they got from the district about what happened -- even after a third-party investigative report was released last year. At a board meeting in November 2023, parents argued the district still hadn’t issued any apologies or addressed certain concerns, like why some staff hadn’t been fired for their roles in the shooting.
The 572-page investigative third-party report said that while the school properly executed its security protocols at the time of the shooting, more could have been done beforehand to minimize or prevent the damage. The report also claimed the district did not have sufficient guidelines in place for proper threat assessment, which could have potentially identified the shooter as a threat before the actual shooting.
School staff and officials who interacted with the shooter prior to the shooting were also assigned some responsibility in the third-party report. However, investigators said only a fraction of school employees they sought to speak with actually agreed to be interviewed and help with the investigation. Other employees reportedly obtained lawyers and refused to provide information.
When the report was released in October last year, the district said it needed to review the details, and that more information would be forthcoming.
Parents of the victims maintain that everyone who had an opportunity to do more to prevent the shooting, especially school staff, should be held accountable for their children’s deaths.
---> Why we may never know where murder weapon was in days before Oxford shooting
A statement from the Michigan Attorney General’s office said that an investigation is not currently possible. It can be read below.
The Attorney General has offered earnestly and repeatedly to conduct an independent and thorough investigation, her initial offer to the School Board dating back to December of 2021. She offered again in May of 2022, and in both instances, her offer to conduct an investigation was soundly rejected by the School Board. We know now, based on other investigations and the School Board’s past statements and behavior, that they are unwilling to waive privilege and allow the investigation by this department.
Absent that, the Department of Attorney General is unable to launch a criminal investigation under its own authority without probable cause that a crime has been committed. To launch our own criminal investigation, we must secure court orders for search warrants, and those must be predicated, in this instance, on probable cause that the school committed illegal acts. To date, we have not been provided any information that would establish probable cause for search warrants, and are therefore unable to launch our own criminal investigation at present.
For more on the Attorney General’s personal insistence on providing such an investigation in 2021, please see her attributions in this contemporary article.
Similarly, the Department has no authority to launch a civil investigation into a school district. We have spoken with several legislators about potentially changing this, to provide specific authority to investigate school shootings. The Attorney General has criminal investigative authority in all 83 counties but no civil authority over school districts and their staff. When and where the Attorney General pursues civil investigations and actions it is authorized by specific legislation, such as our frequent work enforcing the Michigan Consumer Protection Act. In this civil regard we have no different authority than that of the Oakland County Prosecutor’s office, who did conduct a thorough criminal investigation that ultimately found no wrongdoing by the school district.
Attorney General Nessel has met with individual family members multiple times both in public and private settings, and on multiple occasions with the broader affected community. She has met with the families and students in her office, hosted two townhalls in Oxford, and put effort toward hearing all who wanted her ear during these lengthy events. We understand the families are hurting and are understandably upset, but this does not change the law. The law falls short of their wishes here, in that we do not have the authority to fulfil a civil investigation in this way, nor a criminal investigation absent probable cause of criminal activity.
She has heard the families, survivors, and victims, and will continue to listen to them. But this investigation request is not presently possible to fulfill.
Michigan AG Press Secretary Danny Wimmer