DETROIT — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has offered her department's services to do an independent investigation of how Oxford High School officials handled the days leading up to the mass shooting at the high school.
In two tweets Sunday morning, Nessel responded to Oxford Superintendent Tim Throne's announcement Saturday that the district will hire an outside investigator to look at its actions.
"We have reached out to the attorney for the Oxford Community School District and have offered the services of the Michigan Department of Attorney General to conduct a full and comprehensive review of the 11/30/21 shooting and the events leading up to it," Nessel tweeted, responding to a tweet about a Detroit Free Press story. "Our attorneys and special agents are uniquely qualified to perform an investigation of this magnitude and are prepared to perform an extensive investigation and inquiry to answer the many questions the community has regarding this tragedy."
On Saturday, Throne sent a letter to parents about the actions of the school district in the run-up to Tuesday's shooting.
He wrote that Oxford High School counselors did not believe the 15-year-old charged with killing four classmates and wounding seven others was at risk of harming others. He also wrote that Ethan Crumbley appeared calm in an office meeting with his parents on Tuesday, the morning of the shootings, and claimed a graphic drawing depicting blood and a bullet was a part of a video game idea he was designing.
The letter also contained a pledge to conduct an independent investigation. It comes after numerous parents and community members have questioned whether school officials could have intervened more aggressively in Crumbley's behavior.
"Our community and our families deserve a full, transparent accounting of what occurred," Throne wrote. "We also plan to make regular updates to our families and community."
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