A Routine American Tragedy

WaPo: (pay wall)

Authorities are investigating what caused a student to allegedly turn a pistol on his classmates at a Michigan high school, leaving three people dead and eight others injured Tuesday as a small town is left to grapple with what has become a routine American tragedy.

The suspected gunman, who has not been named by authorities, is a 15-year-old sophomore at Oxford High School who attended class before he began shooting, officials said. It remains unclear how he obtained the gun allegedly used to fire 15 to 20 shots.

Officials said a motive also remains unknown for what appears to be the deadliest episode of on-campus violence in more than 18 months, while instruction shifted online during the coronavirus pandemic and school shootings largely dropped out of headlines.

The gun taken from the suspect, a 9mm pistol with 15-round magazines, was purchased by the suspect’s father last week, four days before the shooting, according to Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard.

The suspect, who was booked into jail as a juvenile but could be tried as an adult, did not resist when he was arrested, and is not cooperating with the investigation, authorities said. About 300 law enforcement and emergency management personnel from two dozen agencies, including the FBI, responded to the scene, the sheriff’s office said.

It is illegal under Michigan laws for someone younger than 18 to possess a gun in public in the state. In schools, it is illegal to carry a concealed gun, and some school districts in the state also ban open carry.

The three people killed were all students at the school, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said, identifying them as 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana, 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin and 16-year-old Tate Myre, who died in a patrol car while sheriff deputies were taking him to a hospital.

Seven of the injured were students between the ages of 14 and 17. Of those students, three were in critical condition at a hospital, the sheriff’s office said. A teacher, 47, was shot in the shoulder and discharged from a hospital.

A spokesperson for St. Joseph Mercy Oakland, where the sheriff’s office said a 17-year-old female in critical condition was taken in the aftermath of the shooting, told The Washington Post early Wednesday that the hospital is treating one patient, and that the patient is in stable condition, but it would not release identifying information about the patient due to privacy concerns.

Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe would not say whether the suspect had made threats leading up to the shooting, but he said the possibility is part of the police investigation.

According to Giffords Law Center, a gun violence-prevention group that publishes information about gun laws, Michigan ranks 20th in the nation for states with the strongest gun laws.

“Michigan laws are certainly not the weakest in the country, but they could be a lot stronger,” Allison Anderman, the center’s senior counsel, said in an interview Tuesday night.

Anderman noted that school shootings are still exceptionally rare compared with other types of shootings. Yet in most school shootings, the weapon is a firearm left unsecured in the home.

Since 2018, when 17 people were killed during a shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school, many states have passed legislation making it more difficult for children to access firearms.

Eleven states have laws concerning firearm-locking devices, including Michigan, in an attempt to reduce the risk of guns falling into the hands of children or criminals, according to Giffords Law Center. Michigan does not require firearm owners to lock their weapons.

Many of Oxford High School’s 1,800 students are now grappling with “what ifs” in the aftermath of the shooting in this quiet town that is home to 22,000 people. When a bullet pierced the door of an AP statistics class, senior Kristina Myers said she and her classmates began piling desks in front of the door and passing out calculators to potentially throw at the gunman should he enter the room.

“If my teacher didn’t close the door when she did, our class would have been dead. I know that for a fact,” she said.