GUILTY MI - 4 students killed, 6 injured, Oxford High School shooting, 30 Nov 2021 *Arrest incl parents* *teen guilty* #4
- Thread starter dotr
- Start date
- Status
- Joined
- May 9, 2009
- Messages
- 38,787
- Reaction score
- 115,246
ADMIN NOTE:
No gun control discussion folks. It is not allowed at WS because it leads to bickering over the pros and cons, feelings get hurt, and nothing that is said at Websleuths will ever change anything in that regard.
Thanks for your understanding.
No gun control discussion folks. It is not allowed at WS because it leads to bickering over the pros and cons, feelings get hurt, and nothing that is said at Websleuths will ever change anything in that regard.
Thanks for your understanding.
ContentHomebody
Active Member
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2022
- Messages
- 28
- Reaction score
- 196
I thought this case would put schools on notice too, in how they handle those kids that have or may have mental issues. And also that the school/school employees would definitely be prosecuted specifically those who had the authority/capability to address EC and his issues.
I'm not sure if I think they should be penalized but there is a responsibility to protect all students in those jobs. The student having problems and all the rest. So there should be some type of close examination of what they may have done wrong or that they did the best they could. And I do feel sorry for them (all the adults there) too - the students are not the only ones who suffered trauma that day, and after.
Cool Cats
GRUMPY CAT RULES
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2018
- Messages
- 11,508
- Reaction score
- 86,200
Ethan Crumbley revels in getting fan mail in jail which prosecutor says proves he’s ‘fascinated with violence’
The teenager has allegedly been basking in the notoriety surrounding his case, asking jailers how he can get his hands on fan mail being sent to him.
“How to do I get my fan mail? How do I get my hate mail?” the prosecutor said he had been asking.
“He knows that he’s going to have people who admire him and who hate him alike, and he wants that notoriety,” Ms Collins said.
“He communicates with others and takes the opportunity to commiserate with those who gravitate toward him ... those who commend him for his actions.”
The court heard that he has access to a tablet in jail where he is communicating with other young people by email and telling “some of his fans out there: My next court date is February 22. Maybe you can watch me on TV”.
Ethan’s attorney Paulette Loftin told the judge that the fan mail – a lot of which is from adult women – could be more closely monitored at a juvenile facility.
“These are emails from strangers all around the world. At Children’s Village we are able to control that communication,” she said.
The attorney also argued that the adult jail is “not equipped” to care for the teenager who may be in need of psychiatric help.
The teenager has allegedly been basking in the notoriety surrounding his case, asking jailers how he can get his hands on fan mail being sent to him.
“How to do I get my fan mail? How do I get my hate mail?” the prosecutor said he had been asking.
“He knows that he’s going to have people who admire him and who hate him alike, and he wants that notoriety,” Ms Collins said.
“He communicates with others and takes the opportunity to commiserate with those who gravitate toward him ... those who commend him for his actions.”
The court heard that he has access to a tablet in jail where he is communicating with other young people by email and telling “some of his fans out there: My next court date is February 22. Maybe you can watch me on TV”.
Ethan’s attorney Paulette Loftin told the judge that the fan mail – a lot of which is from adult women – could be more closely monitored at a juvenile facility.
“These are emails from strangers all around the world. At Children’s Village we are able to control that communication,” she said.
The attorney also argued that the adult jail is “not equipped” to care for the teenager who may be in need of psychiatric help.
kaen
Trying to be a good human.
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2014
- Messages
- 6,647
- Reaction score
- 47,959
The new lawsuits are only the latest in the pressuring of the school to make some real changes--not only policy but also in personnel.
I am not totally surprised that the prosecution doesn't see pursuing charges against the school personnel. That said, it was clear after the prelim hearing that there was a massive failure (JMHO) of at least the dean and the two counselors based on the whole of the information they had as well as other goings on in the school like the bird head.
If as an institution you have
1. a severed bird head (but don't know who placed it there but you do have surveillance cameras to narrow down who it could be),
2. a deer head in the courtyard (again you have school wide surveillance),
3. a parent who is a social worker calling with concerns,
4. a kid looking up ammo and the school knowing that he has a gun
5. same kid is drawing images in class the very next day
6. kid has little to no affect, never gets emotional
7. the images drawn are not of him committing suicide but others getting shot,
8. the kid knows enough to change his images but seems to have no remorse,
9. last but certainly not least, in the course of two days you have two instances of the same kid with referrals to the counseling office,
then, you have some serious gaps in understanding any kind of deep psychological issues you might encounter AND these people putting the lives of all in the community at risk.
While it is important to believe that all students are good, it is imperative in this day and age (from Columbine to each shooting where we have gained knowledge) that schools use the tools they have been given, the skills they have been taught and the resources that are available because there are kids who can look like good kids but in a school of over a thousand you just never know who is actually doing what---drugs, alcohol, dv abuse, sexually predatory behavior, or having emotional breakdowns that could result in behaving inwardly or outwardly.
I do believe that the parents and the alleged murderer are the most culpable. However, I am not sure that the school was not criminally negligent in this case. I hope it is probed because guns are to prevalent to have people who work these jobs so clueless AND not loop LE into the picture. I can guarantee that if a resource officer was called in that the bag would have been checked and more questions would have been asked.
In my school, we recently had a student bring a small knife to school-- not brandishing or even for self-protection. It was a cool knife that was thought to be worthy of sharing. Each kid who saw it brought it to the admins attention. He was scooped out of the classroom in less than 3 minutes. Further, LE arrived almost immediately as the resource officer (part of the school response team) made contact. Matter handled with appropriate care and knowledge. I know what my admin would do with drawings like that and a student searching ammo for their new gun. It would have been direct family contact, questions about access to firearms, and a firm understanding of school rules. The drawings would have immediately been handled, no doubt in my mind. These kids at this school deserved so much more from their administrative team and the board.
I am not totally surprised that the prosecution doesn't see pursuing charges against the school personnel. That said, it was clear after the prelim hearing that there was a massive failure (JMHO) of at least the dean and the two counselors based on the whole of the information they had as well as other goings on in the school like the bird head.
If as an institution you have
1. a severed bird head (but don't know who placed it there but you do have surveillance cameras to narrow down who it could be),
2. a deer head in the courtyard (again you have school wide surveillance),
3. a parent who is a social worker calling with concerns,
4. a kid looking up ammo and the school knowing that he has a gun
5. same kid is drawing images in class the very next day
6. kid has little to no affect, never gets emotional
7. the images drawn are not of him committing suicide but others getting shot,
8. the kid knows enough to change his images but seems to have no remorse,
9. last but certainly not least, in the course of two days you have two instances of the same kid with referrals to the counseling office,
then, you have some serious gaps in understanding any kind of deep psychological issues you might encounter AND these people putting the lives of all in the community at risk.
While it is important to believe that all students are good, it is imperative in this day and age (from Columbine to each shooting where we have gained knowledge) that schools use the tools they have been given, the skills they have been taught and the resources that are available because there are kids who can look like good kids but in a school of over a thousand you just never know who is actually doing what---drugs, alcohol, dv abuse, sexually predatory behavior, or having emotional breakdowns that could result in behaving inwardly or outwardly.
I do believe that the parents and the alleged murderer are the most culpable. However, I am not sure that the school was not criminally negligent in this case. I hope it is probed because guns are to prevalent to have people who work these jobs so clueless AND not loop LE into the picture. I can guarantee that if a resource officer was called in that the bag would have been checked and more questions would have been asked.
In my school, we recently had a student bring a small knife to school-- not brandishing or even for self-protection. It was a cool knife that was thought to be worthy of sharing. Each kid who saw it brought it to the admins attention. He was scooped out of the classroom in less than 3 minutes. Further, LE arrived almost immediately as the resource officer (part of the school response team) made contact. Matter handled with appropriate care and knowledge. I know what my admin would do with drawings like that and a student searching ammo for their new gun. It would have been direct family contact, questions about access to firearms, and a firm understanding of school rules. The drawings would have immediately been handled, no doubt in my mind. These kids at this school deserved so much more from their administrative team and the board.
Last edited:
ContentHomebody
Active Member
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2022
- Messages
- 28
- Reaction score
- 196
@kaen I agree with this and very much agree about using tools (knowledge, resources, etc) schools have been given from previous school shootings. It's unfortunate they have so much material from other shootings to look at, evaluate. I would also hope that it is transparent to members of the community and parents to see and know about.
Do schools have outside accrediting agencies that review them? For whatever safeguards, response efforts that the school would put in place is there some outside person(s) saying that it is good enough, or does that happen?
BetteDavisEyes
Fasten your seatbelts...
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2010
- Messages
- 35,319
- Reaction score
- 78,713
There are dozens of references to Michigan's Sovereign Immunity laws, but I think this one offers a concise and informative overview of the difficulties in holding school districts and/or personnel responsible for negligence.
School Negligence | Grand Rapids Premises Liability Lawyers Neumann Law Group
...Public schools and their employees are usually immune from suit under the doctrine of sovereign immunity. This doctrine provides that a governmental entity may not be sued except with its express consent and waiver of the doctrine. There are a limited number of exceptions to governmental immunity, and one of these is for injuries suffered in public buildings. A governmental agency may be liable for a bodily injury arising from a dangerous or defective condition of a public building if it has actual or constructive knowledge of a defect but fails to fix it within a reasonable time after acquiring knowledge of the risk.
When an injury is a result of a school employee's negligence, rather than a dangerous condition, or if the school can persuasively argue this, the standard shifts. In Michigan, you must establish gross negligence to hold a public school's employees liable for their actions. This means that there is an actual awareness of a specific danger to a child, as well as a conscious disregard for the risk. You may only be able to hold liable the specific government employee involved in the accident that harmed your child, such as a teacher or a staff member who acted in a grossly negligent fashion. If the injury was a result of a formal or informal policy that actively created a risk for a child, you may also be able to hold the school board accountable. When there are other factors that contributed to your child's injury, however, such as another student who was behaving dangerously, the government employee may not be held liable...
School Negligence | Grand Rapids Premises Liability Lawyers Neumann Law Group
...Public schools and their employees are usually immune from suit under the doctrine of sovereign immunity. This doctrine provides that a governmental entity may not be sued except with its express consent and waiver of the doctrine. There are a limited number of exceptions to governmental immunity, and one of these is for injuries suffered in public buildings. A governmental agency may be liable for a bodily injury arising from a dangerous or defective condition of a public building if it has actual or constructive knowledge of a defect but fails to fix it within a reasonable time after acquiring knowledge of the risk.
When an injury is a result of a school employee's negligence, rather than a dangerous condition, or if the school can persuasively argue this, the standard shifts. In Michigan, you must establish gross negligence to hold a public school's employees liable for their actions. This means that there is an actual awareness of a specific danger to a child, as well as a conscious disregard for the risk. You may only be able to hold liable the specific government employee involved in the accident that harmed your child, such as a teacher or a staff member who acted in a grossly negligent fashion. If the injury was a result of a formal or informal policy that actively created a risk for a child, you may also be able to hold the school board accountable. When there are other factors that contributed to your child's injury, however, such as another student who was behaving dangerously, the government employee may not be held liable...
kaen
Trying to be a good human.
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2014
- Messages
- 6,647
- Reaction score
- 47,959
In public schools, they are under the auspices of the state department of education. By their own admission, the school did A. L. I. C. E. training (at a post event school board meeting, they confirmed the training and also stated that all substitutes were trained). To my knowledge, every school is required to have an action plan which is why and how the building was secured so fast and students were to meet family at the grocery store. They may or may not be required to do student/school based drills or table top drills with just the administrative teams. My guess is that we will find out as these lawsuits progress.
In my schools, we have had teams who meet to discuss people of concern (based on the Virginia Tech model) and a decision tree of contacts/actions. It is hard to believe you have a severed bird head place in a bathroom, a deer head in your courtyard, and students concerned enough to have their parent call the school or stay home because the incidents freaked them out without some serious internal meetings to get to the bottom of these actions.
People who want to kill can get very creative and new scenarios do crop up all the time. This murderer was displaying all kinds of signals those last two days and no one seems to have had the training to put anything together. I am not sure how the dean and the counselors could be used as a resource for students trying to deal with their trauma given what we heard in court this past week.
Cool Cats
GRUMPY CAT RULES
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2018
- Messages
- 11,508
- Reaction score
- 86,200
Parkland shows Florida’s archaic sovereign immunity law must change
Florida school massacre families settle suit with district
CNN.com - Judge dismisses all but one Columbine lawsuit - November 27, 2001
It's thanks to federal law, not Florida's, that the Broward County School Board was able to approve and begin paying $26 million in settlements to the victims of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland nearly four years ago.
The state's archaic sovereign immunity law would have limited the total payout to $300,000 — to be shared by 17 bereaved families, 17 injured survivors, and 19 students still suffering post-traumatic stress.
Sovereign immunity means that the government can't be sued without its consent. It's a legacy of the medieval concept of the divine rights of kings. Florida should have shed it long ago, as some other states have.
It results in an annual flood of claims bills asking the Legislature to approve damages resulting from lawsuits and settlements that exceed the state's antiquated limits.
Last edited:
Kristin Esq.
Verified Attorney
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2021
- Messages
- 2,111
- Reaction score
- 17,865
Bringing this over from the previous thread from @borndem
"I kinda wonder if the defense team knows they don't have a leg to stand on in this one. It could be that they are using their time on other upcoming cases, or maybe they are holding back until the trial (that's doubtful IMO.
As we all know, with respect to defense attorneys, their biggest charge is to assure their client(s) get(s) a fair trial. Maybe that's all they feel they can do on this one...
What could they say or do to minimize their actions/in-actions in their defense?"
Remember, that in a trial, the prosecution has the burden to prove guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense doesn't even have to put on a case at all if they don't want to (though I wouldn't recommend this). All the defense really needs to do is make sure their clients get a fair trial, and try their best to create reasonable doubt.
"I kinda wonder if the defense team knows they don't have a leg to stand on in this one. It could be that they are using their time on other upcoming cases, or maybe they are holding back until the trial (that's doubtful IMO.
As we all know, with respect to defense attorneys, their biggest charge is to assure their client(s) get(s) a fair trial. Maybe that's all they feel they can do on this one...
What could they say or do to minimize their actions/in-actions in their defense?"
Remember, that in a trial, the prosecution has the burden to prove guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense doesn't even have to put on a case at all if they don't want to (though I wouldn't recommend this). All the defense really needs to do is make sure their clients get a fair trial, and try their best to create reasonable doubt.
borndem
Anglophile & registered demwit
- Joined
- May 15, 2010
- Messages
- 18,973
- Reaction score
- 49,566
Yes, indeed, @Kristin Esq., and we do see/read about trials where there just wasn't quite enuff evidence, or a witness was not "solid" about his/her testimony -- good defense could simply tear up a weak prosecution's case. It remains to be seen how this one will go. There's a lot of blame, IMO, to go around on this one, but apparently the defense firm is said to be very good at what they do. Wondering who the defense will put on the stand if this case does go to the courtroom.
I just can't stop SMH at this whole awful situation. No winners no matter how it goes.
BetteDavisEyes
Fasten your seatbelts...
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2010
- Messages
- 35,319
- Reaction score
- 78,713
Court Explorer | Oakland County, Michigan (oakgov.com)
Court Explorer | Oakland County, Michigan (oakgov.com)
Arraignment Tuesday, March 8 at 1:00PM.
Pre-trial hearing Tuesday, March 15 at 10:00AM.
Court Explorer | Oakland County, Michigan (oakgov.com)
Arraignment Tuesday, March 8 at 1:00PM.
Pre-trial hearing Tuesday, March 15 at 10:00AM.
Last edited:
borndem
Anglophile & registered demwit
- Joined
- May 15, 2010
- Messages
- 18,973
- Reaction score
- 49,566
Cannot get the info -- get error message "something went wrong, try again later." Was it taken down? I'll try again later. 
Thanks for the hearing dates -- looking forward to hearing these...
Thanks for the hearing dates -- looking forward to hearing these...
Last edited:
Kristin Esq.
Verified Attorney
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2021
- Messages
- 2,111
- Reaction score
- 17,865
Thank you for posting this, I was just about to look into it!
Kristin Esq.
Verified Attorney
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2021
- Messages
- 2,111
- Reaction score
- 17,865
Cannot get the info -- get error message "something went wrong, try again later." Was it taken down? I'll try again later.
Thanks for the hearing dates -- looking forward to hearing these...
Click on "Home" and then type in the name and it'll pull up.
Kristin Esq.
Verified Attorney
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2021
- Messages
- 2,111
- Reaction score
- 17,865
Ethan Crumbley decision on staying in Oakland County Jail expected early this week
The judge in the Ethan Crumbley case is expected to to issue a ruling on whether to keep the accused Oxford High School shooter in the Oakland County Jail.
Judge Kwamé Rowe is expected to issue his ruling on where Crumbley should be held while he awaits trial in the Nov. 30 tragedy early this week, possibly on Monday.
[...]
Following the hearing last Tuesday, Rowe said a ruling must be issued in writing, and he said he would be done early this week.
[...]
Ethan Crumbley decision on staying in Oakland County Jail expected early this week
The judge in the Ethan Crumbley case is expected to to issue a ruling on whether to keep the accused Oxford High School shooter in the Oakland County Jail.
Judge Kwamé Rowe is expected to issue his ruling on where Crumbley should be held while he awaits trial in the Nov. 30 tragedy early this week, possibly on Monday.
[...]
Following the hearing last Tuesday, Rowe said a ruling must be issued in writing, and he said he would be done early this week.
[...]
Ethan Crumbley decision on staying in Oakland County Jail expected early this week
BetteDavisEyes
Fasten your seatbelts...
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2010
- Messages
- 35,319
- Reaction score
- 78,713
Cannot get the info -- get error message "something went wrong, try again later." Was it taken down? I'll try again later.
Thanks for the hearing dates -- looking forward to hearing these...
You probably have to go through the security feature to show you're not a robot
BetteDavisEyes
Fasten your seatbelts...
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2010
- Messages
- 35,319
- Reaction score
- 78,713
I will be very surprised if the Judge sends Ethan back to Children's Village. Too many safety concerns for the residents and staff, as well as Ethan himself. JMO
Kristin Esq.
Verified Attorney
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2021
- Messages
- 2,111
- Reaction score
- 17,865
I agree. I don't think it's the right place for him. moo.
- Status