At least three students were killed today, and eight other people were wounded, including a teacher, in a shooting at Oxford High School northwest of Detroit, Michigan. To try to kill more people, the shooter had pretended to be a sheriff’s office employee, saying “Sheriff’s office, it’s safe to come out,” parents said, but students saw through his ruse, and escaped out the window of a classroom.
The shooter is a 15-year-old sophomore whose name was not released. He is in custody, an Oakland County undersheriff said.
“Deputies confronted him, he had the weapon on him and deputies took him into custody,” the undersheriff said. “The whole thing lasted five minutes.”
The shooter killed two female teenagers, ages 14 and 17, and a 16-year-old boy. He used a semi-automatic handgun and acted alone. At least 15 shots were fired. “There were no other guns, no other shooters,” the undersheriff said. “As far as we know.”
At least 100 people called 911 in response to the shootings. The shooter was arrested by a deputy who arrived on the scene. As for how the shooter got the gun inside the school, the undersheriff said: “We know, but I’m not going to say that right now.” The shooter has “already invoked his right to not-speak; he wants an attorney.”
Students were herded away from the school to the parking lot of the Meijer grocery store on nearby Lapeer Road, where many were picked up by parents. Around 4 p.m. some parents remained near the Meijer store waiting to be reunited with their children. Other parents quickly picked up their children and drove away in their cars.
Catherine Tebben, a 17-year-old junior, said she was in “passing time” between classes when the shooting happened. She had just finished lunch. “I’m walking, and almost to my classroom,” Tebben told The Detroit News. “I hear kids running at me, then gunshots going off.”
Tebben said a friend of her boyfriend grabbed her hand and told her to run.
“I’m running and I see blood all over the floor. I run out into the parking lot and get in my truck and drive here” to the Meijer grocery store parking lot, she said.
