An attorney representing survivors of the mass shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan held a press conference Thursday to announce two $100 million lawsuits against the school district and employees.
"Today, we have filed a federal lawsuit...alleging that the counselors, the teachers, the school administrators who failed the students at Oxford High School and virtually every term, therefore violated the civil rights of the Oxford High School students who were injured and killed during this slaughter," attorney Geoffrey Fieger said.
The lawsuits are a response to the November 30 shooting at the school, during which 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley allegedly shot and killed four students while wounding six other students and a teacher.
One federal lawsuit is on behalf of Oxford students and siblings Riley Franz, 17, and Bella Franz, 14. Riley was shot in the neck while next to Bella during the attack. The children's parents were seated next to Fieger during Thursday's press conference.
The lawsuit accuses school officials of failing to stop the attack that resulted in physical and psychological injuries on students. Among the defendants listed in the lawsuit—along with unidentified counselors, teachers and staff members—are Superintendent Timothy Throne, High School Principal Steven Wolf and Dean Ryan Moore.
Details of a second planned lawsuit by Fieger were not made immediately available.
Fieger is a well-known lawyer, and one of his high-profile cases in the past included representing the family of Isaiah Shoels, a student who was killed in the Columbine High School massacre. On Thursday, he drew parallels between that 1999 high school shooting and the one involving his clients' children.
"Twenty years and nothing has changed," Fieger said of school shootings, before detailing measures such as metal detectors and clear backpacks in order to prevent the presence of guns in schools.
He continued, "We've been talking for over 20 years for God's sake. Some of us are tired of talk...We're going to hold people responsible for betraying the trust we put in them to protect our children."
Fieger also discussed what he called the "perverted values of the Second Amendment society" that "prioritize gun ownership over the lives of our children." At another moment during his remarks, he gestured toward a picture behind him of Ethan Crumbley's parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, and called them "the poster children for the Second Amendment gun nuts."
He noted that Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald filed involuntary manslaughter charges against the suspect's parents, but he said the move didn't do enough to discourage such violent acts. Instead, he said the school officials "who could easily have prevented" the incident need to be held accountable.
"At Oxford High School, they'll search your backpack if they think you're vaping, but they refused to suspend or search a student who wrote what we now know was reams of homicidal notes and drawings, scenes of classroom slaughter and mania," Fieger said.
Update 12/09/21, 1:00 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to include more comments made by Fieger during Thursday's press conference.
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