'Get the job done': Families of Oxford High School shooting victims demand state-led investigation

OXFORD, Mich. (FOX 2) - As the three-year anniversary of the Oxford High School shooting approaches, family members of victims continue to seek accountability and answers.

These family members, including the parents of the four students killed – Tate Myre, Hana St. Juliana, Madisyn Baldwin, and Justin Shilling – called on the state to mandate an independent investigation into what led to the Nov. 30, 2021 shooting. 

Though the shooter and his parents have both been sentenced and are in prison, the victims' families still want an investigation into the actions taken by school employees before a 15-year-old student opened fire. They said this call for an investigation is about creating change to protect others.

"We will do whatever it takes to drive the change, because it's not a matter of if a school shooting happens again, but when," said Steve St. Juliana, Hana's father.

The shooter had come on the radar of school employees when he was caught looking up bullets in class and drawing violent images on a worksheet. He spent time in the school's office the morning of the shooting, and even had the gun used in his backpack at that time. Because of this, questions have been asked about whether more could have been done to prevent the fatal shooting.

"It's been three years since the shooting, and we haven’t implemented any real change," said Buck Myre, Tate's father. "Don’t we want to learn from this?"

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel did offer to investigate the shooting twice, but the school board rejected both of her offers, saying that it would use "more holistic third-party reviews."

After those offers were turned down, the shooting was investigated by Guidepost Solutions, who put the blame on the school district.

"In certain critical areas, individuals at every level of the district, from the board to the Superintendent and his cabinet, to the OHS administration and staff, failed to provide a safe and secure environment," the report said.

The report said that the district was responsible for keeping the four slain students and the rest of the survivors and students safe but "failed to do so."

Despite the result of this investigation, the family members argue that there wasn't subpoena power behind that deep dive, which resulted "in many school employees being advised by their attorneys to not participate, leaving crucial questions unanswered."

"All the people who work in schools need to be aware that we haven't learned a thing from this. This hasn't even been investigated," Buck Myre said. "That should be eye-opening to people."

Also, parents of the victims argued during a press conference Monday that Nessel does have the jurisdiction to investigate the shooting and received an invitation from the Oxford school board to do so. Members of the school board, as well as community members and law enforcement, flanked the parents as they called for a governmental investigation.

"We are tired of the back and forth between the government agencies saying, ‘Oh, you should have done this, and you should do that, and we don't have authority,' but you do," Steve St. Juliana said. "Get the job done. It's been three years of excuses."

FOX 2 has reached out to Nessel's office for a response. 

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