Oxford High officials were assured they wouldn't be prosecuted in mass shooting

With the shooter and his parents now convicted, the families of the Oxford High School shooting victims say a fourth culprit still must be held accountable for the deaths of their children: the school.

As one grieving parent put it within an hour of James Crumbley being convicted of involuntary manslaugter: "It's time for the school to pony up." Another said: "We need to start focusing on the school … the school and its failures. The things they don’t want to admit to."

But no school officials will ever be held criminally responsible for the 2021 mass shooting that killed four students and injured seven others, including a teacher.

That's partly because Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald gave multiple school employees who drew scrutiny over their decisions involving the shooter assurances that she would not prosecute them. Those assurances came during interviews held early on as she built her historic case against James and Jennifer Crumbley, according to multiple sources who spoke to the Free Press on condition of anonymity to preserve professional relationships.

Unlike formal immunity agreements, which must be disclosed, the assurances did not have to be revealed to the Crumbleys' defense attorneys.

The Oakland County Prosecutor's Office on Saturday vehemently denied the assertions. "Any suggestion that any school employee was offered immunity or protection from prosecution based on anything other than the facts is completely false, and we will take issue with any suggestion otherwise," said a statement from Chief Assistant Prosecutor David Williams.

Two of these school employees, the sources said, signed what's known as Kastigar or proffer letters — which protect witnesses who talk to the government during investigations from having what they say during those talks used against them.

These two employees are school counselor Shawn Hopkins and former dean of students Nicholas Ejak, who talked with the shooter and his parents during a pivotal meeting on the morning of the shooting, when they allowed the teenager to remain in school despite receiving multiple alerts about his behavior in the 24 hours before the massacre.

The most troubling warning, which prompted the meeting with the parents, involved the teen's drawing of a picture that included a gun, a human being bleeding and the words, "The thoughts won't stop. Help me." The dean and counselor concluded he was no threat to anyone, never searched his backpack — which contained the murder weapon — never asked his parents whether he had access to a gun and never ordered them to take him home.

No one was formally granted immunity

The parents, who said they had to get back to work and agreed to get their son help within 48 hours, returned to their jobs. Their son returned to class. Two hours later, he fired his first shot.

On Friday, more than two years after the shooting, the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office released a statement to the Free Press saying no charges will be filed against any school employees.

"Our office has reviewed all of the evidence in the case. We did not find sufficient evidence to support criminal charges against any school district employee," Williams said in Friday's statement. He also said that "no one was granted immunity."

The statement came one day after the third and final Crumbley family member was convicted for his role in the 2021 massacre: James Crumbley, who bought his son a gun as an early Christmas present — the gun the teen would use four days later to shoot up his school. On Thursday, an Oakland County jury found the father guilty on four counts of involuntary manslaughter, concluding he was responsible for the deaths of four students murdered by his son: Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and Justin Shilling, 17.

Williams' statement Saturday, denying any assurance to school officials that they wouldn't be prosecuted, said that McDonald "has said from the very beginning that she has reviewed all available evidence and has not seen any evidence that would support criminal charges for anyone at the school or district."

"Her decision not to charge is based solely on the facts," the statement said.

A month earlier, his wife, Jennifer Crumbley, was convicted of the same charges. They are the first parents in America to be held criminally responsible for a mass school shooting involving their child. Their son Ethan, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, pleaded guilty to all his crimes and is serving life without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors argued that the Crumbleys, more than anyone else, could have prevented the shooting had they disclosed to school officials that they had bought their son a gun. They also accused the Crumbleys of ignoring a troubled son who was spiraling downward, and instead of getting him help, they bought him a gun.

Parents face hurdles to hold school accountable

Locking up the Crumbleys, however, isn't enough for the parents who lost their children. They also want the school to be held accountable, though that effort is proving difficult thus far. Criminal liability is officially off the table. Separate federal and state civil suits have been filed against the district and school officials, but they are hung up in appeals.

The lawsuits allege the school district and various employees put their children in harm's way through a series of missteps, including failing to properly respond to the shooter's concerning behavior in the day and a half before the shooting. He was researching bullets in class, watching a video of a gunman shooting down people and drawing the picture of a gun with messages of desperation.

Ejak and Hopkins, who are defendants in those lawsuits, had retained prominent criminal defense attorneys Steve Fishman and Mitchell Ribitwer shortly after the shooting and before testifying at the preliminary exam for the parents, during which they helped the prosecution convince a judge that there was probable cause to charge the Crumbley parents with involuntary manslaughter. Fishman and Ribitwer declined comment for this article. Hopkins and Ejak did not respond to requests for comment.

Hopkins and Ejak were key prosecution witnesses, providing damning testimony that the couple chose to leave their child in school that day after seeing his troubling note that read: "Help me."

If they had had formal immunity agreements, the prosecution would have been required to share that with the defense, which could have challenged their credibility at trial. The jury would have learned that Ejak and Hopkins had been promised immunity in exchange for their testimony, which might make them less believable.

But that didn't happen.

Defense expert: 'It shouldn’t be selective prosecution'

Legal experts in both the criminal defense and civil litigation world are crying foul. If school employees made mistakes that cost children their lives, they argue, then why shouldn't they be held accountable?

"They’re not entitled to a free pass, and it shouldn’t be selective prosecution," said veteran criminal defense attorney Art Weiss, who closely followed the Crumbleys' cases and believed the charges against the parents were overreaching and set a dangerous precedent for parents everywhere.

At issue for Weiss is the prosecution maintaining the parents ignored red flags and failed to take small steps that could have prevented the shooting, when the same thing could be said about the school.

"If you’re going to create a scenario where your office is going to take a very hard position on these types of offenses, then everyone should come down," Weiss said. "I don’t know for the life of me why they get a pass and the parents don’t."

Michael Bullotta, a former federal prosecutor in Detroit and Los Angeles, echoed similar concerns, arguing the same theory that was used to prosecute the parents could have been used against school employees: that their failure to act led to the shooting.

Though Bullotta said he disagreed with the decision to charge the parents over what they didn't do, he argued that the same failure-to-act philosophy could be applied to the school employees who saw the same disturbing drawing of the gun, a bullet-riddled body and the words "Help me," yet allowed the teen to return to class.

"There is an argument that the school officials had an even greater duty to act because their main obligation is ensuring the safety of all students," Bullotta said.

Weiss argued that the school employees "should have forced" the parents to take their son home.

"When I went to high school 50 years ago, it took less to get us thrown out. They didn’t give us the option. It was 'Out!' " Weiss said, adding uncooperative parents were also warned, "'If you don’t take them, we’re calling the police.'"

McDonald: 'I'm not going to say' the school did everything right

McDonald herself took issue with how Ejak and Hopkins handled the shooter, if her closing arguments in Jennifer Crumbley's trial are any indication.

"I’m going to tell you right now that this is not an argument that the school did everything they should have done. I’m not going to say that to you,” McDonald said. “I’m not going to tell you that I like everything they testified to. I’m not going to tell you that I think it was OK they didn’t look in the backpack. I don’t think it was.'

But this case, she stressed, was about Jennifer Crumbley's actions, not "what these two individuals did or didn’t do."

The prosecution has argued that Crumbleys knew one crucial detail that the counselor and dean of students did not: That their son had access to a gun.

Ven Johnson, representing families in litigation against the school, argues the counselor and dean could have and should have been sure the shooter left the school after they saw his troubling drawing, and learned that he was sad and depressed about his only friend moving away, his grandma dying and his dog dying — details the teen shared with the counselor. His disturbing drawing also should have prompted action, he said.

"This kid was clearly in a mental health crisis," Johnson said of Ethan Crumbley.

"And if his parents were not going to take him away from the school, then he needed to be removed from the school," Johnson said. "Or you call 911. You tell them, 'I think he’s suicidal. I asked the parents to pick him up, and they said they had to go back to work.' "

Johnson argues the school officials also should have called Child Protective Services, especially given the counselor's statement in a deposition that the student was exhibiting suicidal ideation, and his testimony at trial that he worried about the student being left home alone, so he decided it would be best to keep him in school.

'Hopkins and Ejak absolutely should have been charged'

At James and Jennifer Crumbley's trials, both Ejak and Hopkins testified that they had hoped the Crumbleys would take their son home that day. Ejak said he concluded the teenager posed no threat to anyone, and that he lacked probable cause to search his backpack or discipline him, so he allowed him to return to class.

Johnson is suing the Oxford school district on behalf of the parents of Tate Myre and Justin Shilling, who died in the shooting, and Keegan Gregory, who hid in a bathroom with Justin before the gunman barged in and killed Justin. Keegan managed to escape.

"Hopkins and Ejak absolutely should have been charged," Johnson said, making arguments similar to what prosecutors said at the parents' trials: "Remember what they could have done."

Johnson said the counselor and dean of students could have been charged with failure to report, a misdemeanor that applies to mandatory reporters who have reason to believe that someone is hurt or at risk of being harmed or harming others.

Former federal prosecutor Mark Chutkow, however, said that charging the school employees with a crime would be a tough sell to a jury.

“We entrust school authorities with a lot of responsibility for the safekeeping of children, but to put them behind bars if a student, who isn’t their child, commits a crime in the school — a jury likely would be looking for an exceptional degree of awareness of the risks that student posed to others,” Chutkow said.

While the Crumbley parents and school officials have been accused of similar wrongdoing — specifically failing to take steps that could have prevented the shooting — Chutkow said the charges of involuntary manslaughter would be especially tough to bring against the school employees.

“There’s a reason involuntary manslaughter prosecutions of parents for their children‘s crimes are rare. It’s so hard to show they could reasonably foresee their child would inflict violence on others,” Chutkow said. “It would be even harder to show that a school official — who’s spent a lot less time with a child — could reasonably foresee the child could do such horrible things.”

That’s why, Chutkow explained, absent government immunity the school district and officials are claiming, negligent supervision claims are brought in civil suits, not criminal actions.

Report found officials 'failed to provide a safe' environment

In October 2023, an independent investigation by Guidepost Solutions concluded that the 2021 Oxford High School mass shooting was avoidable had the district followed a threat assessment policy.

"While we did not find intention, or callousness, or wanton indifference, we did find failure and responsibility by omission," the investigators concluded in a 572-page report, noting: "In certain critical areas, individuals at every level of the district … failed to provide a safe and secure environment."

The report zeroed in on the shooter’s graphic drawing and concluded Hopkins and Ejak should have elevated the concern to the principal, that suicide intervention protocols should have been activated and that the teen should have been sent home that day.

According to Guidepost, Ejak and Hopkins refused to cooperate with the investigation.

“The two people with the most information about the decision to allow the shooter to go back to class with his backpack refused to cooperate with our investigation,” the staff said in the report.

The shooter, however, would deceive everyone.

Before his parents arrived at the school, he told the counselor and the dean that the images on his math worksheet were part of a video game he was working to create, and reflected his interest in becoming a graphic designer and video game designer after college.

“I can see why this looks bad,” the shooter said of his drawing, “I’m not going to do anything.”

Ejak believed him.

“At no point in time was I aware that there could be a threat. I don’t think there was any reason to believe that,” Ejak said in a deposition. “What he had to say … made perfect sense.”

At 12:51 p.m. that day, at the same time his dad received a DoorDash delivery request from Tropical Smoothie Cafe, Ethan Crumbley emerged from a bathroom and opened fire.

Tresa Baldas is an award-winning courts and legal issues reporter who received a 2023 Wade H. McCree Advancement of Justice Award by the Michigan Press Association and was named the 2020 Richard Milliman "Michigan" Journalist of the Year by the Michigan Press Association. Contact her at tbaldas@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Oxford High officials were assured they wouldn't be prosecuted