Families of Oxford victims make plea to Michigan AG for investigation into school

Oxford families want accountability from school

A lot has been revealed about the day a mass shooting took place at Oxford High School. But enough remains shrouded in mystery about Nov. 30 that the parents of the victims are motivated to continue seeking every available detail about the day their kids died.

(FOX 2) - All three members of the Crumbley household have been found guilty in the deaths of Justin Shilling, Hana St. Juliana, Tate Myre, and Madisyn Baldwin at Oxford High School in 2021.

But family members of the four dead students aren't deterred from their search for full accountability and on Monday - the week after Oakland County prosecutors secured their second successful verdict from a jury - they were together, again calling for help.

This time, they extended their request to the Michigan Attorney General for a remedy.

"What could we have done before the shooting to prevent it? What could we have done during the shooting to stop it faster? Tate was shot before the announcement came on over the PA - that there was an active shooter - that's acceptable? Hana bled out," said Buck Myre, father of Tate. "What could we have done different and better to save lives?"

In asking the state AG, the four wanted answers to why the school hadn't fully implemented its own emergency operations plan and missed the signs that a school shooting was imminent.

"You know he's got access to a gun. You've got his murder plan right in front of you - you can't recognize that he's at the top of the mountain in crisis," Myre said. "You had all the signs in the world and all the information in the world to search the backpack."

"And out government can hide from it and not be accountable for it," Myre added.

To Myre's right was Craig Shilling, who wore a shirt that had the initials of his son on it, and Steve St. Juliana, Hana's dad. To his left was Nicole Beausoleil, Madiysn Baldwin's mom.

In the year's since the shooting, the four parents have become one of the faces of efforts to prevent mass shootings from happening again. In the aftermath of James Crumbley's conviction last week, Beausoleil said the four had become friends.

"There was no saving Madisyn and I know that, but with Hana I have a really hard time with that because there was a possibility for her to be saved," she said Monday.

"My daughter bled out. It took over 30 minutes for the EMTs to get into the building to her," said St. Juliana. "The shooter was taken into custody within nine minutes."

Three new gun safety laws were passed in 2023, including one that criminalizes improperly storing a weapon when a minor is in a home. But guns are only part of the equation, the Oxford families say.

"We really need to focus also on the mental health aspect of it so ‘what are we doing to implement these things?'" asked Beausoleil.

"We should be able to implement the right changes in order to prevent this. I mean, it's been happening for too much and for too long," said Craig Shilling.

There are also still civil suits challenging the governmental immunity shield that has so far prevented any prosecution of the school. As those cases work through court, the families also want an investigation now.

Without one, they say they won't have a full picture of what transpired on Nov. 30.

"We want a full investigation so that we can get the full story of that day and drive change from it because we don't know what to change if we don't know the full story," said Myre.

"Our kids are gone. There's nothing that we're going to do or anybody's going to do to bring them back and we're here fighting for everybody elses' kids so that nobody elese goes through what we went through," said St. Juliana. "That's ultimately what this is."

Attorney General Dana Nessel has made offers to see an independent investigation of the Oxford School District, only for those efforts to be rejected. The district has instead used a third party to investigate its operations.

Nessel's office also has no authority to launch civil investigations into a school district - something lawmakers have considered changing, especially in connection with school shootings.

Each of the victims' families have established foundations. Find the links below: