Before Oxford shooting, officials repeatedly told parents school was safe

A high school teacher spotted the teen charged in the Oxford High School shootings searching online during class for ammunition and flagged school officials before the 15-year-old allegedly shot and killed four students, according to Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald. 

"There was absolute reason to believe this individual was dangerous and disturbed and I'll leave it at that," McDonald said in a news conference Friday announcing charges against the boy's parents.

The new details raise more questions  about what school officials knew regarding the suspect in the days before the deadly shooting. A teacher was also alarmed on the day of the shooting after finding a note on Ethan Crumbley's desk with the words "the thoughts won't stop" and a drawing of someone who appeared to be shot and bleeding. 

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"The school counselor came to the classroom and removed the shooter and brought him to the office with his backpack," McDonald said.

School officials then met with Crumbley and his parents that morning, but sent him back to the classroom without searching his bag, where prosecutors believed he had stored the weapon purchased by his father, the prosecutor said. 

The officials gave the parents a 48-hour ultimatum to get their son counseling. The parents "resisted the idea" of their son leaving the school that morning, McDonald said.

The district's position is counselors did not have reason to believe Crumbley was at risk of harming others, Superintendent Tim Throne wrote in a letter to the community on Saturday. 

Throne wrote that Crumbley appeared calm in the office meeting with his parents the morning of the shootings, and claimed a graphic drawing depicting blood and a bullet was a part of a video game idea he was designing.

Oxford Community Schools will hire a third-party to review Oxford High School officials' actions, Throne wrote.

What did Oxford High School know? 

On Thursday, Throne addressed the community in a 12-minute video, one of the first public messages from the district since the shooting. Throne briefly touched on the school's involvement in Crumbley's behavior.

He said the meeting between Crumbley, his parents and school officials was not a disciplinary meeting. 

"No discipline was warranted," he said. "There are no discipline records at the high school. Yes, this student did have contact with our front office. And yes, his parents were on campus." 

Multiple family members and students have told the Free Press about the rumors that swirled in the days and weeks before the shootings. A school district spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether school administrators knew about possible threats before the shooting.

Students said they were already shaken by an incident involving a severed deer head left ominously on campus on Nov. 4, though Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard has said that incident was not related. 

Stacey Scheidt, the parent of a junior at Oxford, said she sent an email on Nov. 16 to Principal Steve Wolf, spelling out concerns and anxiety her son felt over threats posted to social media. She said rumors were swirling around an Instagram post involving a countdown to a school shooting. 

It is unclear whether those rumors had any connection to the shootings. Wolf and Superintendent Throne did not respond to requests for interviews about emails and parent concerns. 

Scheidt shared her emails with the Free Press.

"I know it’s been investigated but my kid doesn’t feel safe at school," she wrote. "He didn’t even want to go back to school today." 

Scheidt wrote in a Facebook message to the Free Press that an Oxford counselor called her "to again reassure me that school was totally safe and that they had had numerous conversations like this with parents and students alike and there was no threat to the school." 

Wolf, the principal, wrote in a response to Scheidt that no threat existed. 

"I know I'm being redundant here, but there is absolutely no threat at the HS," he wrote on Nov. 16. "Large assumptions were made from a few social media posts, then the assumptions evolved into exaggerated rumors."

Contact Lily Altavena: laltavena@freepress.com or follow her on Twitter@LilyAlta.