PONTIAC, Mich. (WXYZ) — The similarities between Wednesday's deadly shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, and the 2021 shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan are frightening.
In both cases, the firearms used by the teenage shooters were Christmas gifts from their parents.
Video: Tenn accused of killing 4 at Georgia high school and father appear in court
In Oxford, school officials were aware of disturbing drawings made by the 15-year-old including "the thoughts won’t stop, help me” and “blood everywhere."
In the case in Georgia, law enforcement interviewed the suspect over a year ago when he was 13 about alleged threats to carry out a school shooting, but one officer indicated that the teen "assured" him that he didn't make any threats.
"The similarities between what is going on in Georgia and what happened here in Oxford are alarming," said Linda Watson, whose son Aiden survived the Oxford shooting but has had a long road in his recovery. "My heart breaks for the whole community because it feels like it's on repeat from what happened to us."
Hear more from Watson in the video player below:
James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of the Oxford High School shooter, were each found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter in early 2024. They're now serving time in prison.
On Friday, 54-year-old Colin Gray, the father of the 14-year-old accused shooter in Georgia, was charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children. His son was also charged with murder.
"The first thing I thought of was could it have been avoided," said Buck Myre, whose son Tate Myre was murdered at Oxford high. "Is there something that we could have learned from Oxford that Winder could have applied to their school district."
Myre and other Oxford parents have been frustrated with what they see as the lack of accountability of Oxford school officials for what they see as their failures to protect the students that day including not demanding that that Crumbleys take their son home after they called them to the school to discuss their son's troubling behavior.
The dean of students carried the Crumbley's son's backpack to the office and noted it was heavy, but no one ever searched the backpack despite a picture of the gun being on his drawings.
An independent investigation by Guidepost Solutions found that while only the shooter is guilty of murder and assault, ".. the District was responsible for keeping Madisyn, Tate, Justin, Hana and all of the other OHS survivors and students safe and secure at OHS on November 30, 2021, but failed to do so."
The report also said the "tragedy was avoidable" and that district officials often denied responsibility and shifted it elsewhere.
"Nobody recognized the Guidepost report, so there hasn't been any real change," Myre told 7 News Detroit Friday. "And there hasn't been a deep-dive to get to the lessons learned to share with everybody — this is what we did right and this is what we did wrong so other districts can learn from this."
While the shooter pulled the trigger and his parents gave him access to a gun, Myre said the school also had all kinds of warning signs.
"But only the people can be held accountable, the system can't. That's bu******," Myre said. "Why are we doing nothing? The body count's not high enough?"
Click on the video above to hear more from parents of students at Oxford high and their hope for change.
