DETROIT — An attorney representing families of four students slain and others wounded in the Nov. 30 Oxford High School shooting said Thursday the 15-year-old shooter did show troubling signs that were noted to school officials.
"From the beginning of school, Ethan Crumbley was evidencing signs of being a highly troubled individual to say the least," Detroit Attorney Ven Johnson said during a news conference alongside parents of victims Justin Shilling, Keegan Gregory and Tate Myre. "There weren't warning signs. There were stop signs everywhere, especially on Monday the 29th and Tuesday the 30th (of November 2021)."
During an hour-and-a-half news conference, Johnson detailed four red flags deriving from depositions of six Oxford High School officials that they believe could have prevented the tragedy had corrective action taken place.
Specifically, Johnson detailed that Crumbley turned in drawings and filled out assignments that showed "violent" responses. Teachers alerted counselors and school officials that Crumbley was looking at bullets and videos of gunning down crowds while sitting in class even up to the day of the tragedy.
Johnson's firm has several related lawsuits pending in Oakland Circuit Court and federal court. Johnson said he wants to argue the unconstitutionality of Oxford Community Schools — or any government body — "to hide behind governmental immunity."
Oakland County Circuit Judge Rae Lee Chabot had previously ordered attorneys into mediation on the issues, but after they reported being unable to resolve matters, she told attorneys in July they have 60 days to comply with depositions from six school employees named as defendants: Pam Parker Fine and Shawn Hopkins, both school counselors; Nicholas Ejak, dean of students; and teachers Jacquelyn Kubina, Becky Morgan and Allison Karpinski.
"All of this should have been revealed by Oxford Community Schools. This should have been part of an investigation done by the attorney general or whoever they chose," Johnson said. "These parents had no information other than what was revealed at the press conferences."
Oxford Community Schools could not be reached for comment Thursday regarding the following claims.
The initial warning sign was in the first week of school in August, Johnson said, showcasing a note card with a self-portrait drawing that was a class assignment and returned to his teacher. The drawing had what appeared to be a building to the left of a self-portrait of Crumbley wearing glasses, but the teacher said later it could be a magazine filled with bullets. A faint outline of a gun could be made out after Crumbley erased it from the self-portrait.
"She (the teacher) claims she never saw this drawing until Monday, the day before the shooting, but this drawing was in her classroom and one of the first assignments she gave to those kids in the school year," Johnson said. "She admitted it looked to be a magazine full of bullets and if she had saw it at the time she would have done something about it."
Following Labor Day weekend, on Sept. 8, 2021, Crumbley was the subject of an email from a Spanish teacher to the school counselor, Hopkins, at 8:23 a.m. stating: "Could you please touch base with Ethan Crumbley? In his autobiography poem, he said that he feels terrible and that his family is a mistake," Johnson read. " 'Unusual responses for sure.' Her words not mine."
Attorneys have not deposed the Spanish teacher yet, but Johnson said they will.
"What we know is that Hopkins admits that he got this email and that he was busy that day so he was going to deal with it the next day. Hopkins testified he did not speak to Ethan but to the (Spanish teacher). She said she was no longer concerned based on what he called 'further reflection.' She knew what Crumbley was talking about was a homework assignment and not something concerning his life," Johnson said. "Hopkins never spoke to Ethan despite the fact that he felt terrible and thought his family was a mistake."
The Spanish teacher further told the Oakland County Sheriff's Office following the shooting that Hopkins told her that he had spoken to Crumbley, "but we now know that he never did," Johnson said.
Jumping to Nov. 10, 2021, just 20 days before the shooting, the Spanish teacher sent Hopkins another email: "Ethan probably is having a rough time right now. He might need to speak with you."
Hopkins testified at his deposition that at this instance, he went to the Spanish room, pulled Crumbley out of class and said, "if you're having a tough time right now, you're welcome to come talk to me I can do my best to help you," Johnson paraphrased. "And Ethan responded 'OK' and that was it."
"Imagine that he didn't spill his guts in the hallway of the school ... nothing with no follow-up during the second time Hopkins has been told about concerning behavior," Johnson said.
On Monday, Nov. 29, 2021, teacher Kubina sent an email to the dean of students Ejak, and counselor Fine, that she was alarmed to see Crumbley searching the internet for bullets.
Johnson quoted from an email: "I had a student during the first hour today, Ethan Crumbley, who was on his phone looking at different bullets at the end of the first hour today as I was walking around the room passing out their graded essays. I didn't get a chance to investigate it a bit further since it was the end of the hour. Now that he's on my radar, I'm noticing that some of his previous work that he's completed from earlier in the year leans a bit toward the violent side."
Kubina said she could bring the previous homework to them during her fifth-hour prep.
"She testified eight or nine different bullets on the (cellphone) screen," Johnson said. "She further said Ethan didn't hide the phone from her. She spins it as something good saying 'if he was really doing something wrong he would have hid it from me.'"
Kubina noticed while going through Crumbley's previous work that he also completed an English Language Arts survey on Aug. 26, 2021, that was likely the same date as the note card.
In the survey, Crumbley listed his favorite book as "Resistance and Making bombs for Hitler." His two favorite television shows were "Dexter" and "Breaking Bad," Johnson said.
"She testified that those responses leaned toward the violent side," Johnson said. "That's when she sends the email to Ejak and Fine, but when we deposed them, neither recalled seeing the ELA survey. She also sent it to Hopkins."
Hopkins testified, "What they had in front of them at the time was nothing," Johnson said. "They spoke to Ethan who said he screwed up and he can't look at that stuff at school."
Following the shooting, a classmate told the Oakland County Sheriff's Office that on or about Nov. 25, 2021, the Thursday before the shooting on Tuesday, Crumbley told him "'if I ever tell you not to come to school, don't.' But the young kid didn't know what to do with that information and thought he was kidding," said Johnson, adding that Crumbley showed the kid pictures of his gun on his Instagram and a single bullet from his pocket.
Kubina said she never heard back and sent another email at 3:21 p.m. on Nov. 29, 2021, to Hopkins and Fine with pictures of the note card and answers listed on three questions that are on the back, adding she was concerned on answers two and three.
First, who was your favorite language arts teacher? Second, what's a word that describes the last three months during the pandemic and homeschool? Crumbley wrote: "Enjoyable." And to what's your biggest pet peeve? Crumbley responded: "When people don't do what I ask them to do," Johnson quoted.
"After discovering what Ethan was looking at today in class, this seem to correlate," Johnson quoted from the Kubina's email.
On the morning of Nov. 30, 2021, Karpinski, a special education teacher who sits in on classrooms for various days, sent an email to Hopkins and Fine stating: "I know (another teacher) emailed you yesterday about some concerns about Ethan Crumbley in our first hour class. Today, he's watching videos on his phone of a guy gunning down people. It looks like a movie scene, not a real event but definitely concerning when taking into account some of his other behavior."
A half hour later, Hopkins received another email from the math teacher that showed Crumbley's homework drawings of firearms, bullets with words "blood everywhere," "the thoughts won't stop help me," and "the world is dead."
The math teacher was concerned and marched it down to the office. Hopkins pulled Crumbley from class, leaving his backpack on the back of his chair. In the office, Hopkins and Ejak had a 45-minute conversation about his note that the "thoughts won't stop help me." At the time, Crumbley told the officials that he wants to be a video game designer and all is well.
Crumbley's parents are called and "In the middle of all of this, Ethan is really worried about missing chemistry but really he wants his backpack, which is loaded with the firearm, magazines and his manifesto," Johnson said.
Johnson said Ejak went to the math classroom to retrieve the backpack and when the teacher handed it to him, he verbally made a comment on how heavy it is. Neither one of them thought to search the backpack, Johnson said.
Crumbley was working on his chemistry homework when his parents arrived at the school. Hopkins told the parents that he wanted Ethan to see a mental health therapist within 24 hours and provided resources to reach out to.
Ethan Crumbley returned to class around noon and at 12:51 p.m. shots were fired.
During the shooting, a dozen were injured and four students were fatally shot: Hana St. Juliana, 14; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; and Justin Shilling, 17.
"To hear adults be sworn to tell the truth across the table from me and say this is normal behavior for kids from Oxford to be obsessed with guns ... I can't think of anything more grotesque and concerning," Johnson said in his conclusion. "Apparently, the only thing that was going to stop Ethan from the school's perspective was if that kid would have handed them his manifesto and said read what I'm going to do today."
Johnson said they will be taking depositions of school administrators that should have been notified including principals and superintendents and sharing what happens with the public.
"We're hoping by sharing this that we can once and for all begin to have an understanding of what went wrong and by whom, and what needs to happen in the future," Johnson said.
Johnson's firm has already filed lawsuits against Crumbley, his parents and the school district to find out who is conducting this investigation. A motion to review governmental immunity, which was expected to be heard in October, has been postponed to February, Johnson said.
Buck Myre, Tate Myre's father who witnessed the testimonies, said it's "blatantly obvious that Oxford Community Schools is withholding information. They knew they dropped the ball that day and are hiding behind governmental immunity."
"Accountability is owning what you do," Myre said.
Jill Soave, Justin Shilling's mother, said this new evidence is beyond neglect, it's "unforgivable."
"I don't see any excuse to not take these red flags seriously," Soave said. "We have four angels that are gone that should be here today. ... Anyone with common sense could put these pieces together that something was very wrong. Someone should have called CPS because it's better safe than sorry and these school shootings keep happening again and again ... these teachers should have stepped it up to another level."
Oxford School Board President Tom Donnelly and Korey Bailey, the board's treasurer, resigned earlier this month.
"There's some folks in our community that are doing a lot of work behind the scenes trying to drive for accountability and I think they've been fed propaganda," Myre said. "The school board has been fed propaganda ... they weren't allowed to ask questions. They weren't allowed to dig deep. When these two members stepped away and started listening to the community, it became obvious that Oxford Community Schools is covering this up. ... They all should resign."
