Ethan Crumbley disturbing behavior cited by two different teachers but sophomore student was allowed to resume class hours before Tuesday’s rampage.
Two Michigan school teachers separately reported concerning behavior over accused high school shooter Ethan Crumbley’s ‘disturbing’ and ‘concerning’ behavior — but administrators allowed him to return to class just hours before Tuesday’s deadly rampage that led to four students killed and seven people injured.
Crumbley, 15, was first reprimanded at Oxford High School on Monday after ‘a teacher in the classroom where he was a student saw and heard something that she felt was disturbing in terms of his behavior,’ Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard told CNN.
‘They had a counseling session about it with school officials and a phone call was left with the parents,’ Bouchard said.
‘And they had a counseling session about it with school officials, and a phone call was left with the parents,’ Bouchard added.
But the ‘concerning’ behavior would spill over into the next day as well.
“Premeditation is clear both in terms of the digital evidence we’ve uncovered, and our detectives are going through written writings as well,” says Oakland, County, Michigan, Sheriff Michael Bouchard, on the deadly Oxford High School shooting. pic.twitter.com/mKybRNpskQ
— The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) December 3, 2021
School shooter emerged from bathroom with weapon within 3 hours of meeting with officials over disturbing behavior
‘The day of the shooting, a different teacher in a different classroom saw some behavior that they felt was concerning and they brought the child down to an office, had a meeting with school officials, called in the parents,’ the sheriff said. ‘And ultimately it was determined that he could go back into class.’
Bouchard declined to detail what the teachers’ concerns were, adding that his department was ‘never informed of either meeting prior to the shooting or that there were any concerns about behavior.’
When asked why Crumbley was allowed to return to class on Tuesday, Bouchard said: ‘That will all be part of the investigation, in terms of what they thought, and why they thought that that was the right step.’
Within three hours of Tuesday’s school meeting, Crumbley allegedly emerged from a school bathroom with a semi-automatic handgun, where he proceeded to shoot 11 people and killing four students.
The 10th grader through a hallway at a ‘methodical pace,’ prosecutors said, shooting at students in hallways and classrooms before surrendering in what’s become the deadliest shooting at a US K-12 school since 2018 and the 32nd on such a campus since August 1.
Bouchard said school officials and police were unaware prior to Tuesday’s bloodbath that Crumbley had made ‘horrendously disturbing’ videos the night before the shootings.
‘Obviously he talked about what he intends to do and the kinds of things he’s thinking about,’ the sheriff said. ‘It’s just chilling.’
How much did shooter’s parents know?
Crumbley echoed the disturbing comments in a journal in his backpack, in which the 15 year old documented his intent to murder fellow students, police said.
Asked about Crumbley’s parents’ knowledge of what their son was writing or recording before the shooting or his accessing the new weapon, Bouchard added, ‘We don’t have any information that they knew that this was a path he was headed. But … that’s very much an active investigation.’
Bouchard said prosecutors are still weighing charges against Crumbley’s parents.
The teen’s father, James Crumbley, purchased the 9mm handgun four days earlier, and both parents advised their son not to cooperate with police and retained a lawyer, invoking his 5th amendment right not to incriminate himself by speaking to authorities.
Bouchard noted that ‘at this point, we don’t have any information that they knew that this was a path he was headed’ but said it’s part of the investigation.
The sheriff also reiterated that there is no evidence that Crumbley had been bullied prior to the attack, despite some earlier reports to the contrary.
‘But I also want to say this,’ he said. ‘While bullying is terrible and we investigate it and it should never happen, nothing that we saw on that day of the tragedy in taking these lives and marring forever everyone else could rise to any kind of acceptable response to anything that he felt had happened to him.’
School district officials have not commented on the case or the meetings at the school.
