Former Oxford school officials say Ethan Crumbley should have been sent home before mass shooting
Policy 8400 had been in place years before the mass shooting killed four people in November 2021.
Two former school board members allege that district officials did not follow existing policies that could have prevented the mass shooting at Oxford High School last year.
The school hired an independent firm to analyze why officials did not remove teen Ethan Crumbley from the building before he shot four classmates to death, and what steps have been taken since to safeguard students. But former Oxford School Board President Tom Donnelly says he left his position a few months ago out of frustration over the way district officials were investigating the shooting.
“Because over time there were too many times where too many incidents where things were against the board’s interests. For instance, I learned in the month of May something that we should’ve been told by our non-district voices in February.”
Donnelly alleges that Oxford High had policies in place to identify potentially violent students but did not follow them properly before Crumbley went on his killing spree.
Korey Bailey is the former treasurer for the board. He also resigned a few months ago as the district continued its investigation into the shooting.
Bailey says the school had a policy in place since 2011 to identify students who could potentially become violent but officials did not follow it.
“I truly believe that if Oxford Community Schools could have been prepared with policy 8400 these past few years, and had actually trained on threat assessment, the situation would have ended November 29 and the 30th would’ve just been another day in Oxford,” says Bailey.
Policy 8400 calls for increased scrutiny of a possible threat and more oversight from school officials when a student displays concerning behavior. It’s something the Oxford School Board says it has now adopted in the wake of last year’s shooting.
The school district has hired security firm Guidepost Solutions to conduct an independent review of the days leading up to, during and after the mass shooting.
Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.
WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
