While the the Michigan school shooter’s sentencing in the criminal case is one major thing families are dealing with, they’ve also filed civil lawsuits alleging the school and some of its employees should have done more to stop the shooting from happening in the first place.
“I’m not really one of those guys that’s just gonna go out and sue, sue, sue,” said Craig Shilling, father of 17-year-old victim Justin Shilling. That said, “You have to have accountability. You have to know that everything, every rock was overturned, you looked everywhere, that all the questions got asked and answered,” he added.
An independent report commissioned by the Oxford Board of Education, and released in October, found in part, “that had proper threat assessment guidelines been in place and District threat assessment policy followed, this tragedy was avoidable.”
Ven Johnson, president of Ven Johnson Law in Detroit and Flint, Michigan, is representing a number of the Oxford shooting victims and families, including the Shillings and Gregorys, who have filed state and federal lawsuits.
“What we do in civil law is we go after everybody who’s culpable,” Johnson told CNN. “Their own paid-for report says they screwed up and could have prevented the shooting. And they didn’t. And yet, they’re still here in court, trying to get out of being held responsible.”
A portion of their civil claims center on the morning of the November 2021 shooting. Ethan Crumbley’s teacher found a note on his desk. It had a drawing of a handgun pointed at the words, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me,” as another section showed someone who appeared to have been shot twice and the words “blood everywhere,” according to the lawsuit.
That was among the warnings that prompted a meeting with school officials and his parents. His parents resisted the idea of taking him out of school, so he returned to class, according to the civil lawsuit. No one ever checked his backpack.
Hours later, he went into a bathroom with that backpack and came out with a gun, according to criminal prosecutors.
However, in state civil court, a judge sided with the school district, ruling the district was protected by governmental immunity and that the employees were not the “direct cause of the injury or damage.”
“That’s all B.S., if you ask me. I mean, you have to, you have to own up to your mistakes, no matter what they are,” Shilling said.
Meghan Gregory told CNN she won’t be able to rest until anyone who may be found culpable in the school district is held accountable. “I cannot let it go,” she said.
CNN has reached out to attorneys for the school district about the appeals process and for comment about governmental immunity wins they have had in state circuit court, but has not received a response.
