Oxford School District is accused of destroying evidence in school shooting massacre trial

Lawyers for a student injured in the deadly school shooting at Oxford High School last month are accusing the school district of destroying evidence.

The Oxford School District in Michigan is facing $100 million lawsuit from the family of Riley Franz, 17, who was shot in the neck on November 30, and her sister, Bella Franz, 14, who watched it happen as they exited a bathroom at the high school.

Their lawyers have requested a trove of evidence in their case alleging the Oxford School District failed to protect students by letting a ‘deranged’ and ‘homicidal’ student return to class despite warning signs that Ethan Crumbley, 15, was going to do something dangerous.

The lawsuits name the Oxford Community School District Superintendent Timothy Throne, Oxford High School principal Steven Wolf, the dean of students, two counselors, two teachers and a staff member as defendants. 

Among the evidence they said went ‘missing’ since they filed their suit on Thursday are one of the defendant’s LinkedIn profiles and a list of administrators from the school website.

‘Not only did defendants fail to take necessary steps to preserve the evidence, but they willfully destructed the evidence by deleting the webpages and social media accounts,’ lawyer Nora Hanna wrote in Friday’s filing, obtained by the Detroit Free Press.

‘Plaintiff’s cannot continue to be blindsided by the defendants by having to search for what evidence is being destroyed or altered.’

Ethan Crumbley, 15, was arrested in the school shooting and is being charged with terrorism and first-degree murder

His parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, were also charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter after they allegedly bought the gun for their son

Lawyers for the school district called the claim ‘disgusting’ and a ‘lie,’ claiming that the district is fully cooperating with investigators.

But on Friday night, US District Judge Terrence Berg ordered the school to turn over all evidence related to the shooting, though he did not specifically mention the plaintiff’s claim that evidence was destroyed. 

 Since the deadly shooting on November 30, it has been revealed that Ethan Crumbley’s parents had spoken to guidance counselors at the school just hours before the shooting after a teacher became concerned with a drawing he made that included a bullet and the words ‘blood everywhere’ and statements he made prior to the fatal shooting. 

According to Throne, the teacher alerted school counselors and the dean of students about the drawings and statements Ethan made, after previously viewing images of ammunition on his phone he claimed was for his family’s shooting hobby, and he was ‘immediately removed from the classroom.’

Guidance counselors then monitored him for an hour and a half as they unsuccessfully tried to reach his parents, James and Jennifer.

When they eventually responded, counselors asked them about Ethan’s capacity for harm and concluded ‘he did not intend on committing either self harm or harm to others,’ according to a letter Throne sent to community members over the weekend. 

The guidance counselors reportedly suggested James and Jennifer bring him home for the day, but they said they had to return to work.

A few hours later, Throne writes, Ethan started shooting just before 1pm ‘during passing time between classes when hundreds of students were in the hallway transitioning from one classroom to another.’  

Ethan, 15, was arrested just a few minutes after the shooting began, and was charged as an adult with terrorism, first degree murder and other counts in the deaths of Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; and Justin Shilling, 17. 

His parents were also charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter for allegedly gifting their son with the gun he used in the shooting. All three have pleaded not guilty.

Police responded to the scene of Oxford High School in Michigan on November 30 after receiving numerous calls about shots ringing out

Parents walked their children away from the scene after receiving an active shooter call

Madisyn Baldwin, 17, (left) and Hana St Juliana, 14, (right) died in the shooting rampage at Oxford High School in suburban Detroit 

Justin Shilling, 17, (left) died in the hospital after the shooting and Tate Myre (right) died in the school on November 30 

The Franz family’s lawyers have now reached out to a number of companies and governmental agencies asking them to preserve evidence from the shooting, including Verizon, AT&T, the FBI and the Department of Justice.

They also asked Instagram and Facebook to preserve any posts with the hashtags #OxfordStrong and #OxfordSchoolShooting.

But the Oxford School District is being asked to produce the most information in court documents, the Free Press reports, including: all files on Crumbley, correspondence between district officials about potential past threats and employment records of all counselors, teachers and staff at the school.

They also want any video footage the district may have of his parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley.

Members of the community bowed their heads during a prayer service and candlelight vigil one day after the deadly shooting

Some students also mourned at a memorial outside Oxford High School

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer embraced Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter as the two left flowers at the memorial in the wake of the shooting

On Friday, the plaintiffs also asked a federal court judge to hold a hearing ‘to discuss sanctioning the defendants for participating in obstructionist behavior just hours after the commencement of a lawsuit,’ arguing that district officials scrubbed the website and removed an employee’s LinkedIn page.

The hearing has not yet been scheduled, and Timothy Mullins, an attorney for the district disputed that it was destroying any evidence.

‘It’s a lie… it’s disgusting,’ he told the Free Press. ‘People think the school district is withholding information? Everything that we have has been give to the prosecutor … everything they want we’ve given them.’

He claimed the person whose LinkedIn page was scrubbed, who was not named by the Free Press, has not worked in the district in more than a year, and by naming him in the lawsuit, Geoffrey Fieger, a lawyer for the Franz family, is causing him ‘unnecessary trauma.’

‘It’s disgusting,’ Mullins said. ‘This man has been defamed.

‘I’ve asked Fieger to remove him from the lawsuit, and he won’t.’

In an interview with CNN,  Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald, right, said school officials had the legal authority to search 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley’s backpack and locker when they had concerns about some drawings and statements he made prior to the fatal shooting at the end of November, but failed to do so

Meanwhile, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald has hinted that school officials may be criminally charged in the shooting.

In an interview with CNN last week, she said school officials had the legal authority to search Crumbley’s belongings when they found a chilling note on his desk that featured disturbing drawings depicting a gun, a bullet, blood, a shooting victim and a laughing emoji.

The note included the words: ‘Thoughts won’t stop, help me’; ‘my life is useless’ and ‘the world is dead,’ according to prosecutors.

When questioned by school counselors just hours before his gun rampage, Ethan said the graphic drawing was a plan for a video game. 

At that point, McDonald said the gun would have been at the school. 

‘We don’t know exactly if the weapon was in his bag, where it was. We just know it was in the school and he had access to it,’ she said.

The day before the shooting, Ethan was spotted searching for ammunition on his phone, and when asked by a teacher he said it was for his parents’ gun hobby. When the school raised the issue with his parents, his mother sent him a text saying: ‘LOL. I’m not even mad at you.’ 

When asked if school staff members could be prosecuted, McDonald told CNN‘s Brianna Keilar, ‘We haven’t ruled out charging anyone.’

She later said in another interview with ABC’s Good Morning America that she could charge the school officials in the shooting, noting: ‘In this case, a lot could have been done different.’

McDonald said the  investigation’s findings will determine whether school officials will be charged in the attack at Oxford High School.