Two years after Oxford High school shooting
Two years after Oxford High school shooting
3rd party report describes efforts by the lawyers for Oxford Community Schools and the teachers union to discourage people from cooperating in the investigation
Two years ago today—November 30, 2021—was the shooting at Oxford High. Four students were killed and seven others wounded when a student with a handgun (purchased for him by his parents just days before) opened fire in the hallway. This attack never should have happened because there were overt warning signs and clear opportunities to avert it.
The failure to prevent this school shooting led to my interview on Freakonomics Radio. Here is the clip discussing how the attack at Oxford High was the result of a causal chain of failures. Making just one right decision had the power to break the chain and stop the school shooting from occurring.
Since the Oxford High attack two years ago, very little has been done in Michigan—or across the rest of the country—to put better systems in place to prevent the next one. We tell people to look for ‘red flags’ without offering clear actions to take or creating easily accessible methods for reporting. When reports are made, there is little redundancy and few established processes to make sure that critical information doesn’t fall through the cracks.
Cover-ups and lack of information sharing
Earlier in November 2023, a third party report investigating the Oxford High shooting was finally published.
"The Oxford School Shooting report describes efforts by the lawyers for Oxford Community Schools and the teachers union to discourage people from cooperating in the investigation. Of the 161 people investigators asked to interview, 70 refused or did not respond, including most of the shooter’s former teachers and several critical witnesses to the shooting. Both employees who met with the shooter hours before the incident did not cooperate."
Oxford High is not the only one. More than a year later, there is no official report on the school shooting at CVPA High School where a former student had an AR-15 and 600 rounds of ammo.
18 months later, there is no official report on the school shooting at Robb Elementary.
20 months later, there is no official report detailing the plan or motive of the man with 6 rifles and 1,000 rounds of ammo who fired 240 shots at the Edmund Burke School in Washington, DC.
How can we prevent future school shootings when the details of these attacks are hidden and recommendations/corrective actions aren't shared with other schools and police departments across the country?
We cannot continue to accept this status quo.
David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database. If you liked this, listen to my recent interview with the New England Journal of Medicine.