Takeaways from Oxford School Shooting Investigation and Lawsuits

In the past decade, school shooting incidents have increased greatly. After a shooting, people launch criminal and civil legal actions against the shooter, the shooter’s parents, the school, school employees, law enforcement officials, and gun makers, among others.

Recent developments from an investigation and lawsuits relating to the November 30, 2021, Oxford High School mass shooting in Oxford, Michigan show the changing nature of a school’s legal duty to provide a safe educational environment. We covered key takeaways of the incident in an earlier article: Lessons Learned From the Michigan School Shooting. It is important for schools and educational entities to familiarize themselves with these developments to prevent and minimize school violence and shootings.

For the first time in U.S. history, the parents of the shooter, Ethan Crumbly, were criminally charged and convicted in February and March this year for their child’s involvement. The mass shooting killed four students and injured seven others. Both parents were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter under Michigan state law after two separate jury trials. Prosecutors showed evidence the parents supplied their son with the deadly weapon, ignored signs of his emotional distress and failed to safeguard the weapon.

These developments also expand, clarify, and forecast in what circumstance a school will be found responsible for school shootings in civil lawsuits against the public high school, the school district and school employees.

Generally, state law governs the legal duty that a school has to its students to prevent harm. This varies state by state. For instance, in Louisiana, schools have duty to not be negligent in supervising their students. The level of this duty depends on the student’s age. Whether a school defendant was negligent or breached its legal duty, is fact-intensive. It relies upon factors like industry standards and internal policies. Public employees and institutions can assert claims of governmental immunity from civil liability, and they often succeed. There are few situations where immunity can be reversed.

In March 2023, the Michigan Circuit Court granted immunity from civil liability to all government employees and institutions in two state court lawsuits. There are pending appeals on those dismissals. In August 2023, the Michigan Circuit Court dismissed two other state court lawsuit on summary dispositions.

In May 2023, a Michigan federal court dismissed most of the constitutional and gross negligence claims in a series of civil lawsuits. But some claims – against a counselor, dean and the school district – survived. These relate to the counselor and the dean allowing the shooter to return to class and failing to train and supervise employees. Specifically, the court ruled that the “state created danger” claim could move forward and overrode the governmental immunity defense. “State created danger” under Michigan law is an overt act that raised the risk of harm to the students. The court found the dean and the counselor made the situation worse by saying to the shooter that his parents must comply with the school’s directives to seek mental health assistance for him or else they would report his parents to law enforcement, which may separate the shooter from his parents. The defendants who lost their governmental immunity have appealed.

The Oxford Community Schools Board hired a third-party firm to conduct an independent investigation. That firm released its 500-plus page report in October 2023. It noted the school district and the school made many mistakes. These include:

• • The school district failed to implement a preexisting threat assessment policy
  • The school failed to follow the threat assessment policy
  • The school administrators did not:
    • Alert the principal of the shooter’s troubling behavior on the day of the shooting
    • Compel the shooter’s parents to remove him from the school based upon his troubling behavior the day of the shooting
    • Have any policy or rules to inquire about a student’s access to a weapon in making threat assessments and suicide intervention assessments
    • Conduct a search of the shooter’s backpack the day of the shooting based upon his behavior
    • Use the school’s security system and cameras to track the shooter and tell people about his location and status

While the school district did not implement its threat assessment policy, the investigation found the preexisting policy did meet best practices in these four areas:

• • Required multi-disciplinary, trained threat assessment teams led by a principal and included a school mental health professional and a school resource officer
  • Stated the threshold for conducting a threat assessment is relatively low – when a student’s communication or behaviors might suggest either that a person may cause physical harm or presents a potential threatening situation
  • Had guidelines to carry out the policy. These included requiring training on the types of behaviors or communications to trigger a threat assessment and a process for handling an assessment such as checking social media
  • Conformed with the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security’s Enhancing School Safety Using a Threat Assessment Model guide

It is unclear how the report will ultimately be used or treated in the pending civil litigations and appeals, which mostly took place before independent investigators released the report. 

Here are key takeaways from the report and developments in the litigation. Keep in mind:

• • Schools should review their policies and procedures to make sure they are following best practices on threat assessments.
  • Schools should also review their policies and procedures with on suicide intervention.
  • Schools should have a policy about conducting threat assessments and actually carry them out.
  • Trainings on threat assessments need to be done regularly. School counselors and mental health professionals need to be particularly designated for training.
  • Asking about a student’s access to a weapon is an essential part of any threat assessment.

Please contact Rebecca Sha, Ashley Heilprin or any member of the Phelps Education team if you have questions or need advice or guidance.