By Jennifer Chambers, MediaNews Group

The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office failed to establish a timely incident command and was late to dispatch fire crews in response to the Oxford High School shooting, according to an independent investigative report released Monday.

The office did not establish a formal incident command at Oxford High School until 25 minutes after a teenage gunman who went on a murderous rampage was in custody, according to an after-action review of the emergency response to the 2021 school shooting.

The 275-page report found no evidence of neglect or dereliction of duty by individual responders, but noted that failing to quickly establish an initial command and promptly integrate with other public safety agencies can lead to severe consequences.

“Successful incident command operations in the first five minutes of a critical event often determine response success. These operations include not only ‘sizing up’ a scene, but also a brief description of initial actions, and instructions for additional responding personnel,” investigators wrote in the report’s executive summary.

Nearly 560 emergency personnel responded to the scene from more than two dozen agencies. But poor communication and inadequate training hamstrung some EMS, police and fire workers, investigators found.

Survivor accounts from the attack revealed a chaotic scene in which nearly 1,600 students and dozens of staff were fleeing the sprawling school building while emergency responders tended to the wounded and dead and police searched for the student gunman.

Although multiple ranking OSCO officers were present, the report says there was a 25-minute gap before a lieutenant assumed the role of incident commander.

“During this 25-minute period, although critical objectives were met and the shooter was apprehended, there was some confusion about where resources should be directed and coordination with public safety officials such as fire/EMS was disjointed,” the report says. “Once command was established, law enforcement agencies were aligned with the roles needed to complete the building clears, secure the interior of the building, and create a perimeter around the outside of the building.”

Release of the Guidepost Solutions report follows a Detroit News investigation that revealed complaints from fire department officials that their crews were dispatched late to the attack. The News also reported that the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office declined to participate in a third-party review of its department’s response as recently as January 2024, a claim that Sheriff Michael Bouchard has denied.

Oakland County government officials approved $500,000 to hire a review firm three weeks after The News’ report. Guidepost was tasked with conducting a comprehensive report evaluating the multi-agency response to the shooting and the recovery effort that followed.

The shooter, Ethan Crumbley, a sophomore at the school at the time, fired his weapon 33 times in the attack and killed Hana St. Juliana, 14; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; and Justin Shilling, 17.

The report determined that, despite the misteps in response, the victims’ injuries were “inherently fatal” and that a quicker emergency response could not have saved their lives. The conclusion was based on information from a medical examiner’s report and analysis by an independent medical expert.

“Our review determined that the nature and extent of Madisyn, Tate, and Justin’s single gunshot wounds to the head were inherently fatal,” the report says. “Hana sustained multiple gunshot wounds, with resulting abdomen and chest injuries, which were collectively inherently fatal. Even with immediate medical intervention, the experts’ consensus is that the outcomes would not have changed.”

Despite the shooter being apprehended just two minutes after the sheriff’s department arrived on scene, and OCSO ranking personnel arriving on scene within the first seven to nine minutes after the shooting began, incident command was not formally established until Lt. Todd Hill arrived at 1:20 p.m. and initiated command at 1:25 p.m., the report found.

“This constitutes a time gap of approximately 27 minutes after the SRO (school resource officer) and OCSO Deputy 1 arrived on scene, approximately 25 minutes after the shooter was in custody, and approximately 24 minutes after OCSO dispatch confirmed the suspect’s arrest,” the report says. “Lieutenant Hill ultimately established incident command inside the lobby of OHS by a bench across from the administration offices.”

Guidepost found breakdowns in communication regarding the locations of officers and victims early in the response. The first two officers to enter the schools, “while understandably focused on the apprehension of the shooter,” did not provide updates on their movements, victim locations or their conditions via radio, the report says.

“Best practices suggest that, as the first responders on the scene, they are the ‘de facto’ command and should not only announce their entry point but also provide information about what they saw as they came upon the victims in the hallway. Also, due to a lack of effective communication, some efforts were duplicated. Injuries were reported multiple times and OHS surveillance depicted numerous deputies clearing the same hallways.”

A lack of training, for both law enforcement and firefighters, was identified in the report as a challenge.

At the time of the shooting, sheriff’s deputies and supervisors were not sufficiently trained in incident command and unified incident command, Guidepost found. Since that time, the sheriff’s office has instituted programs on those concepts, the report says.

“During this review numerous fire department members indicated that, when on scene at OHS, they did not feel that they were adequately prepared to deal with the chaos and pressures of an active assailant situation,” the report says.

“Departmental training was limited to mass casualty scenarios within EMS continuing education programs. There was insufficient or even non-existent training on the use of ballistic protective gear at the fire department, which was frequently stored away and never utilized by personnel,” the report says. “For many OFD members, the day of the shooting was the first time they donned ballistic vests and helmets.”

Guidepost recommended that fire department chiefs mandate bi-annual active assailant training with the sheriff’s department.

Oakland County Executive David Coulter said he was briefed Monday morning by Guidepost officials and had not yet read the entire report.

“I appreciate the report. It is comprehensive. I think it’s fair,” Coulter said. “We engaged with Guidepost because we’re committed to taking an honest look at how we respond to these kinds of emergency, tragic events, and to see where there could be lessons that we can learn from them, and it certainly appears that there are areas that could be strengthened.”

Coulter said there was a very successful and courageous response by first responders and a lot of things done right.

“And I continue to be proud of the people who responded on that horrible day,” he said.

Dispatch delay found

In its report, Guidepost identified a delay in dispatching the Oxford Fire Department in response to early 9-1-1 calls that came in at 12:52:32 with a definitive report of injury.

At 2:19 minutes into the call, at 12:54:51, the caller confirmed a victim was shot, the report says. At 12:52:59, information regarding shots fired was dispatched to all OCSO units. Oxford Fire Department was not dispatched until 12:59:56, Guidepost says.

“Best practices suggest dispatch should be within 15-30 seconds of receipt of a call, and within no more than 60 seconds. The call data reviewed indicates that the call takers recognized this incident as a confirmed active shooter event well before the decision to dispatch the fire department,” the report says.

“OCSO follows the practice of waiting to dispatch fire departments until confirmation of an injured party is established. Although OCSO asserts that this is based upon directions from fire departments, we suggest that in low occurrence-high threat events such as active shooter incidents, especially those at schools, it is logical that all necessary resources be dispatched even before confirmation of injuries.”

The Guidepost report critiqued the response and offered recommendations to improve emergency preparedness and response to incidents, including a recommendation to Oakland County to ensure that a formal after-actio review is conducted for all multi-agency critical events in the county.

In interviews with The Detroit News in 2024, Oxford Fire Chief Matthew Majestic and Addison Fire Chief Jerry Morawski said they self-dispatched their crews when the high school came under attack.

While both chiefs said the dispatch delay did not impact their treatment of victims as fire and EMS crews staged outside the school until police worked to secure the scene, Majestic told The News then that the delay cost his department valuable time to develop a plan ahead of treating victims, four of whom died. It’s an aspect of the tragedy he has struggled with for years.

“Had they toned us out, we could have been staging and ready and organized,” Majestic told The News in 2024. “I know we would have reviewed the maps, probably made changes to who is responding and where. … We would have had more people on the scene. … We could have made a better-educated triage. … You took away that opportunity of building a plan.”

The role of school resource officers

Guidepost, a New York-based investigations, regulatory compliance, monitoring and security consulting firm, found there was no protocol during the shooting for detailing responsibilities of the school resource officer in relation to non-police school security. School resource officers (SROs) are armed, certified police officers.

The issue stands out because the SRO at Oxford High School was not required to remain on campus and was not present at the time the shooting began, having left earlier for an investigation at Oxford Middle School and a stop at the substation. On the same day, the school security officer was absent on pre-approved leave.

“Consequently, a part-time armed hall monitor was the sole armed individual at OHS. Going forward, expectations must be clearly delineated regarding SROs and school security,” the report says. “There should be protocols in place between the district/school and OCSO about alternative security measures when school security is unavailable.”

Investigators did identify “certain breakdowns in command, coordination, communication, and training, which demonstrate the need for improved rapid response protocols, rescue task force (RTF) training, and enhanced tactical medical readiness.”

Fire and emergency response

In the area of fire and emergency services responses, the report says both command and communications were “hindered” during the incident when fire command at the scene moved all fire communications to a different radio channel.

“This was intended to facilitate information-sharing among all responders. However, fire personnel within OHS were unaware that the radio channel was changed and repeatedly called command on the wrong channel, receiving no response,” the report says. “Dispatch did not intervene to redirect units to the correct channel or have command switch channels.”

Guidepost recommended that dispatch be alert for misrouted communications and proactively redirect personnel to the correct channel, and that fire departments review and revise policies and practices of switching radio channels during critical incidents. The report added: “When a switch occurs, it should be announced by dispatch with a ‘tone out’ to alert all on the channel.”

The report also found that in the absence of clear dispatch protocols, fire and EMS personnel were not informed when the shooter was in custody, delaying their entry into OHS by approximately four and a half minutes.

“The computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system did not utilize specific call types for active assailant incidents, and there was no county-wide operating procedure to guide a coordinated response. We recommend that pre-determined CAD call categories be implemented for active assailant events, not only to streamline dispatch practices but also to ensure that fire and EMS are made aware of developments as they occur,” the report says.

Records from the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office show Oxford EMS staging outside the high school at 1:00:53 p.m. and transporting the first victim out of the high school at 1:06:32 p.m., 15 minutes after the shooting began.

Guidepost investigators recommended fire departments reconsider their staging practices to provide “greater clarity and coordination” and move to a unified county-wide policy. At the time of the shooting, the policy of fire and EMS departments from both Oakland and Oxford was to “stage” their response by waiting nearby until the scene is declared safe, the report says.

“This creates confusion for both personnel within the department as well as law enforcement, who remain unsure when firefighters and EMS members will enter a scene to render aid,” the report says. “We recommend that Oxford Fire Department (OFD) as well as other departments across Oakland County reconsider staging practices. This requires agencies to evaluate best practice recommendations to forgo staging during active assailant events and clarify whether dispatch instructions to stage are mandatory or advisory.”

Outdated dispatch system

Guidepost described the sheriff’s department’s Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system as outdated, saying it heavily relies upon manual entry by dispatchers for the transfer of information. It recommends CAD systems be updated to transition from manual to automated entry and that CAD should flag high-risk keywords such as “shot,” “injured,” “weapon,” “gun,” and “active shooter” to trigger response protocols.

The day of the attack, 911 calls were rerouted from Oxford County to Lapeer County. A total of 248 emergency calls would flood sheriff’s dispatch in the first 60 minutes after the attack.

“For example, one call from OHS administration, which proved to be the most valuable for tracing the direction of the suspect, was rerouted to Lapeer. Active shooter incidents can often tax phone systems, as they were not designed for the volume that often occurs after a tragedy. We recommend that public safety organizations establish county-wide policies for handling misrouted 9-1-1 calls and build relationships with local phone service providers to understand how large-scale incidents affect call coverage and routing,” the report said.

Reunification practices

The emergency operations plan for Oxford Community Schools had identified Meijer, a half mile from the school, as the reunification location. Hundreds of students fled there. The report says many Oxford High Schooll families reported a positive experience with the reunification process, the approach fell short in providing sufficient communication and emotional support to the families of the victims.

“The families of Madisyn, Tate, and Hana came to the reunification center with the expectation of reuniting with their children. However, after two hours and no more students arriving from the school, the parents were ushered into a store breakroom where they were informed that their children were killed,” the report says.

Guidepost investigators wrote that in discussions with Madisyn’s mother, Nicole Beausoleil, Buck Myre, and Steven St. Juliana, the families did not approve of the manner or means by which the information was relayed.

“While they understood that there was no perfect way to convey this information, Nicole Beausoleil felt that the words were emotionally disconnected and significantly contributed to the continued trauma suffered. All agreed that OCSO’s delayed disclosure of their children’s passing, repetition of additional buses coming, and overall silence gave the impression that officers were not being forthcoming,” the report said.

Guidepost suggested the reunification process could be improved by broader staff training and formalized protocols.

Reporting by Steve Karnowski and Mark Vancleave, Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A gunman opened fire with a rifle through the windows of a Catholic church and struck a group of children celebrating Mass during the first week of school, killing two and wounding 17 in an act of violence the police chief called “absolutely incomprehensible.”

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the shooter — armed with a rifle, shotgun and pistol — approached the side of the church and shot through the windows toward the children sitting in the pews during Mass at the Annunciation Catholic School.

O’Hara said the shooting suspect is dead and in his early 20s and does not have an extensive known criminal history. Officials are looking into his motive.

“This was a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshipping. The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible,” said the police chief, who noted that a wooden plank was placed to barricade some of the side doors.

The children who died were 8 and 10, he said.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called the violence “horrific” in a social media post.

Children’s Minnesota, a pediatric trauma hospital, said in a statement five children were admitted for care. Hennepin Healthcare, which has Minnesota’s largest emergency department, said it also was caring for patients from the shooting.

Bill Bienemann, who lives a couple of blocks away and has long attended Mass at Annunciation Church, said he heard dozens of shots, perhaps as many as 50, over as long as four minutes.

“I was shocked. I said, ‘There’s no way that could be gunfire,’” he said. “There was so much of it. It was sporadic.”

Bienemann’s daughter, Alexandra, said she attended the school from kindergarten to 8th grade, finishing in 2014. After she heard of the shooting, she said she was shaking and crying, and her boss told her to take the day off.

“It breaks my heart, makes me sick to my stomach, knowing that there are people I know who are either injured or maybe even killed,” Alexandra Bienemann said. “It doesn’t make me feel safe at all in this community that I have been in for so long.”

The school was evacuated, and students’ families later were directed to a “reunification zone” at the school. Outside, amid a heavy uniformed law enforcement presence, were uniformed children in their dark green shirts or dresses. Many were trickling out of the school with adults, giving lingering hugs and wiping away tears.

Local, state, county and federal law enforcement officers and agents converged on the area, a leafy residential and commercial neighborhood about 5 miles (8 kilometers) south of downtown Minneapolis. On Truth Social, President Donald Trump said he was briefed on the “tragic shooting” and that the White House would continue to monitor it.

Dating to 1923, the pre-kindergarten through eighth grade school had an all-school Mass scheduled at 8:15 a.m. Wednesday morning, according to its website. Monday was the first day of school. Recent social media posts from the school show children smiling at a back-to-school event, holding up summer art projects, playing together and enjoying ice pops.

At a meeting of Democratic officials elsewhere in Minneapolis, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin noted the shooting and “unknown amount of victims.”

The gunfire was the latest in a series of fatal shootings in the city in less than 24 hours. One person was killed and six others were hurt in a shooting Tuesday afternoon outside a high school in Minneapolis. Hours later, two people died in two other shootings in the city.

Wednesday’s school shooting also followed a spate of hoax calls about purported shootings on at least a dozen U.S. college campuses. The bogus warnings, sometimes featuring gunshot sounds in the background, prompted universities to issue texts to “run, hide, fight” and frightened students around the nation as the school year begins.

Associated Press writers Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa; Jennifer Peltz in New York; Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota; and Sarah Brumfield in Cockeysville, Maryland; contributed to this report.

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By Kara Berg, MediaNews Group

The mother of Oxford High School shooting victim Madisyn Baldwin said on Friday that she doesn’t see the $500,000 she accepted from the school district as a settlement — she sees it as an ultimatum from them.

Nicole Beausoleil, who sued Oxford Community Schools along with three other families for its role in a 2021 mass shooting, said she took the money from the district not because she was giving up on enacting change within Oxford schools, but because she had to think of Madisyn’s father and her three younger siblings.

“I felt (the $500,000) was the only measure I’d get from the tragedy to help them do everything they deserve to do,” Beausoleil said. “It was very hard for me to do. I really didn’t want to take it. I didn’t want it to show like I gave up, which I didn’t give up. I knew it was a take it or leave it type of deal. I felt in my heart I couldn’t make the decision only for myself.”

Beausoleil’s 17-year-old daughter Madisyn was one of four kids killed at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021. Justin Shilling, 17, Tate Myre, 16, and Hana St. Juliana, 14, were also killed.

Beausoleil and Justin’s family were the only two to take the settlements. The Myres and the St. Julianas rejected it. The settlements were connected to federal lawsuits the families filed, alleging the district failed to protect students and downplayed the threat the killer posed to the school.

“I just want the change. I want people to see the bigger picture here, not look at this as two families gave up and took the settlement,” Beausoleil said. “It’s not a settlement, it’s an ultimatum. Take it or leave it, you have this many hours to decide. There wasn’t anything about it that was sincere or remorseful.”

The shooter, Ethan Crumbley, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in December 2023, though he is appealing both the sentence and his guilty plea to the Michigan Supreme Court.

The panel of three judges from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously concluded former counselor Shawn Hopkins and former dean of students Nick Ejak did not display a callous indifference toward the risk they perceived the shooter posed prior to the Nov. 30, 2021 attack and that Oxford schools had immunity and could not be sued. The wrongful death lawsuit was dismissed May 20.

Oxford Schools attorney Tim Mullins said the offer to the families before the 6th Circuit decision was $1 million, and it was lowered to $500,000 after that.

“We always try to reach a reasonable resolution of a disputed claim,” Mullins said. “We are pleased to have been able to do so at this point.”

Beausoleil said the district has only seen her daughter as a liability.

“I want her to be seen in a different light,” Beausoleil said. “I want this kind of just to be behind me and to keep moving forward to continue to create change. We’re going to constantly fight, there’s no stopping it.”

While she’s lost a lot of hope in the past four years, she said she plans to keep fighting for her children. She filed the lawsuit so she could see change in the district, so no one would have to feel the pain she and the other families felt.

“Our lawsuits were to create change, it wasn’t to create this sue happy, ‘oh need a bunch of money’ idea,” Beausoleil said. “We want systematic change. We want this change because there was neglect on all aspects.”

Madisyn’s younger sister Payton is starting her freshman year this fall, Beausoleil said. She’s going to Anchor Bay schools, and Beausoleil said she has gone through safety directives with the district. It’s heartening to see they’ve taken her suggestions to improve student safety, she said.

But still, the thought of Payton going to high school has taken a toll on Beausoleil, she said. The money will help to make sure Payton can go to college at an Ivy League if she wants to and to help her autistic brother.

Madisyn would’ve wanted that, Beausoleil said. She had planned to go into neuroscience to learn about autism and how the brain functioned.

“It’s not a lot of money, I’m not expecting the kids to live off of this,” Beausoleil said. “But it’s a start in the right direction of where it should’ve started in November 2021.”

By Aya Fayad, MediaNews Group

The convicted mother of the Oxford High School shooter who killed four of his classmates on Friday asked the Michigan Court of Appeals to throw out her involuntary manslaughter convictions for what she described as a “sham prosecution” by a “cheating” prosecutor.

In the historic February 2024 decision, Crumbley was convicted in a jury trial on four counts of involuntary manslaughter arising from the criminal acts of her son, Ethan, who shot and killed four students at Oxford High School in November 2021. Ethan’s father, James Crumbley, was also convicted on four counts of involuntary manslaughter in a separate jury trial in March 2024. Both were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison.

Prosecutors said both parents were grossly negligent by storing a gun and ammunition where their son could access it, and that they missed repeated opportunities to stop the tragedy. The decision marked the first time in the United States that a parent was convicted of manslaughter for a mass shooting carried out by their child.

“Opportunity knocked over and over again and was ignored,” Oakland County Circuit Judge Cheryl Matthews said last year at the trial. “No one answered.”

However, both Crumbley and her husband have long argued that they did not know of their son’s plans for a mass shooting at his school and never noticed any signs of his deteriorating mental state. Her attorney further argued to the Court of Appeals that the trial was “riddled with errors.”

“This entire prosecution of Mrs. Crumbley was a sham that should never have been allowed to proceed to trial,” appellate attorney Michael R. Dezsi said in a statement. “The case against Mrs. Crumbley has been off the rails from the beginning … not to mention all the cheating by the Oakland County Prosecutor.”

The Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office did not immediately respond Saturday to requests for comment. But Prosecutor Karen McDonald in the past has called Dezsi’s claims “meritless” and said the only motivation for his requests claiming that she had secret agreements with two star witnesses was to generate headlines and divert attention away from Crumbley’s actions.

Crumbley’s appeal contended that she cannot be held criminally responsible for involuntary manslaughter because she “owed no legal duty to the victims of her son’s criminal acts” and was “under no legal duty to control and prevent her son from committing intentional, criminal acts.” The document argued that Crumbley’s convictions are inconsistent with Michigan law because of the absence of a “special relationship” with the shooting victims, and therefore no legal duty to protect another from the criminal acts of a “third party.”

The appeal also said past precedent about a parent’s duty to “control their minor child” has been applied only in situations when a child is unable to comprehend the risks or dangers of their actions, not in circumstances involving a teenager intentionally committing violent acts. Dezsi noted Michigan passed a safe-storage gun law after the shooting, meaning there “was simply no law in place from which to impose a legal duty on Mrs. Crumbley to prevent her son from accessing the firearm to commit intentional, criminal acts.”

Prosecutors have countered that there was a foreseeable risk in Ethan Crumbley’s actions and that Jennifer Crumbley failed to put a stop to them. During the trial, they argued that the parent ignored signs that her 15-year-old son was in crisis, failed to get him mental health treatment and bought him a 9mm gun anyway, while failing to put a lock on the gun.

Responsibility of Oxford officials

Dezsi also argued that it was Oxford High School officials, not Jennifer Crumbley, who had a legal duty to prevent her son’s acts because her son was under his school’s control and supervision. Consequently, officials such as former counselor Shawn Hopkins and former dean of students Nick Ejak had a legal duty to protect students Hana St. Juliana, Justin Shilling, Tate Myre and Madisyn Baldwin, who were killed in the shooting, based on the officials’ “special relationship” to them.

In March, a three-judge panel from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously concluded Hopkins and Ejak did not display callous indifference toward the risk they perceived Ethan Crumbley posed prior to the Nov. 30, 2021, attack. The wrongful death lawsuit was dismissed on May 20.

However, on Thursday, the families of Baldwin and Shilling confirmed they settled with the Oxford school district, Hopkins and Ejak for $500,000 each, despite an appeals court ruling that the district was protected by qualified immunity. The families of Myre and St. Juliana rejected the offers.

Nicole Beausoleil, Baldwin’s mother, said Friday that she took the settlement money not because she was giving up on making change within the school district, but because she had to think of her husband and three kids.

Errors in the trial

Dezsi also argued that multiple errors were made throughout the trial, and that the prosecution used improper evidence, and Judge Matthews allowed them to “cheat their way to a conviction.”

“We have discovered documents proving that the prosecutor engaged in an orchestrated smear campaign, paid for with taxpayers’ money, and made secret deals with witnesses to testify for the prosecution,” Dezsi said. “Yet despite all of the evidence surrounding the prosecutor’s misconduct, cheating, and mishandling of the case, Oakland County Circuit Judge Cheryl Matthews turned a blind eye to all of it.”

The allegations include that the prosecution was inconsistent, charging Ethan Crumbley as an adult but prosecuting his mother for not controlling her minor child. Dezsi also argued that the prosecution intentionally didn’t share its proffer agreements with Hopkins and Ejak, which shielded the two school officials from criminal blame instead of Jennifer Crumbley. And he contended the Oakland County jury was prejudiced against the mother.

Another argument is that the prosecution gave two definitions of involuntary manslaughter, but Matthews failed to instruct the jury members that they were required to agree on one of the two theories — gross negligence due to the inadequate storage of the gun or her legal duty to “control her minor child.”

Jennifer Crumbley is also contesting the introduction in court of the journal entries and text messages written by Ethan Crumbley, arguing they are “hearsay without an exception, more prejudicial than probative, and violated the United States and Michigan constitutions” because Ethan and his friend, the recipient, were never required to take the stand and testify.

The journal, seized from the student’s backpack that was found in the school bathroom, contained detailed plans to commit a mass murder at the school, entries about past events, statements about his parents and criticisms of school officials.

Texts Ethan Crumbley sent to his friend included messages revealing his desire to become a school shooter, some reading things like, “I have ZERO help for my mental problems and it’s causing me to SHOOT UP THE F—– SCHOOL.” and “My parents won’t listen to me about help or a therapist.”

“Not only did Judge Matthews allow the prosecution to cheat their way to a conviction, but she allowed the jury to hear improper evidence that favored the prosecution’s case while excluding other evidence that would have countered it,” the filing said.

Dezsi repeated Crumbley’s arguments that McDonald’s office had retained high-priced public relations firms costing Oakland County taxpayers nearly $300,000 to run a behind-the-scenes smear campaign against Jennifer Crumbley.

In June, Matthews found that McDonald the suppressed evidence, but it wasn’t a serious enough violation to deny Jennifer Crumbley from receiving “a trial and verdict worthy of confidence based on the cumulative effect of the significant evidence against her.” After the ruling, McDonald said it was “time to turn the attention away from the Crumbleys and refocus on the victims.”

Dezsi disagreed in the filing.

“There will be at least 10 more judges on higher courts who will review this case, and I’m confident that at some point in this process, Mrs. Crumbley’s convictions will be thrown out,” he added.

By Kara Berg, The Detroit News

The families of slain Oxford High School students Madisyn Baldwin and Justin Shilling have settled with the Oxford Community School District, former counselor Shawn Hopkins and former dean of students Nick Ejak for $500,000, despite an appeals court ruling that the district was protected by qualified immunity.

The district offered the $500,000 settlement to each of the four families whose children were killed in the November 2021 mass shooting at Oxford High School, said Madisyn’s family’s attorney Wolfgang Mueller. Baldwin, 17; Hana St. Juliana, 14; Shilling, 17; and Tate Myre, 16, were killed by a 15-year-old student at the school.

The panel of three judges from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously concluded Hopkins and Ejak did not display callous indifference toward the risk they perceived the shooter posed prior to the Nov. 30, 2021, attack and that Oxford schools had immunity and could not be sued. The wrongful death lawsuit was dismissed May 20.

“You had to look at the writing on the wall,” Mueller said. “Just knowing the way the panel had addressed the lawyers’ oral arguments in the Sixth Circuit, I knew it was going to happen. … It’s clearly not anywhere near adequate to make up for the harm, but the reality was, the cases were going to be dismissed.”

Oxford Schools attorney Tim Mullins said the offer to the families before the 6th Circuit decision was $1 million, and it was lowered to $500,000 after that.

“We always try to reach a reasonable resolution of a disputed claim,” Mullins said. “We are pleased to have been able to do so at this point.”

Mullins said Tate and Hana’s families rejected both offers and the ball is now in their court. Their lawsuits have been dismissed, but he said he’ll “never say never” to the possibility of an out-of-court settlement.

Madisyn’s family filed a motion Thursday to approve the settlement and allow the distribution of the money. A similar motion has not yet been approved in Justin’s family’s case.

Attorney Chris Desmond, who along with Ven Johnson represents the families of Tate and Justin in their lawsuit against the district, said Tate’s family declined the settlement but Justin’s family accepted it.

Steve St. Juliana, the father of victim Hana St. Juliana, told the Oxford Community Schools Board of Education to “shove” their $500,000 offer during a June board meeting. He said he was given less than 20 hours to consider the offer.

“That’s how little that you value our children,” St. Juliana told board members. “I don’t even know what to say. I mean, how can you not be embarrassed and ashamed? Not only of the offer, which is insulting, at the very least, but the manner in which it’s delivered.

“Well, I’ll deliver my answer right here. I am not going to stop striving for the changes necessary to save our kids,” he added. “So you can shove your offer.”

Lawsuits filed by victims and their families have alleged that the district failed to protect students and downplayed the threat the killer posed to the school. The shooter, Ethan Crumbley, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in December 2023, though he is appealing both the sentence and his guilty plea to the Michigan Supreme Court.

His parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, were both convicted of four counts each of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the four students their son killed. Both were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison and are appealing their convictions.

The families of seven students who filed the civil cases reached the effective end of their appeal attempts in May after the Michigan Supreme Court declined to hear arguments in the case against Oxford Community Schools. A federal judge ruled in May that those cases also cannot proceed.

Michigan’s Court of Appeals ruled last month that Steve St. Juliana can sue Michigan State Police over his allegations that they should have done more to intervene and prevent the shooting.

Mueller said “everyone is disappointed in the amount” offered in the settlement.

“They’re more disappointed that the school district has never, ever accepted any responsibility for this,” Mueller said. “They’ve hidden behind qualified immunity, which is what got the case dismissed. They’re not happy in any respect.”

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