How Oxford finally got an independent report into 2021 school shooting

The long-anticipated investigative report from Guidepost Solutions comes nearly two years after violence and chaos unfolded inside a Michigan high school on Nov. 30, 2021, and aims to answer some questions that have lingered for Oxford victims and their families.

Four students — Hana St. Juliana, 14; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; and Justin Shilling, 17 — were killed and seven others, including a teacher, were injured in the mass shooting at Oxford High School.

The gunman, Ethan Crumbley, was a 15-year-old sophomore at the time of the attack who plotted the killing spree in a journal and used a Sig Sauer 9 mm semi-automatic handgun to kill classmates and shoot at others.

Parents of some of the teens killed in the attack have said they want the full truth of what happened inside the school in the days leading up to the attack and on the day of the school massacre. No police report has been issued to families or the public, and details of what happened have mostly been revealed during a court hearing for the killer's parents and during court hearings leading up to the shooter's sentencing on Dec. 8.

More:Read the Guidepost report on the Oxford High School shooting

A third-party investigation into the Oxford school shooting was reluctantly sought by Oxford Community Schools' board of education nearly six months after the attack and after intense public demand and pressure for one to occur. The May 2022 decision to hire Guidepost Solutions to perform an independent investigation also came after the board of education, led by then-president Tom Donnelly, rejected three offers from the state Attorney General to conduct one.

Weeks after the Nov. 30, 2021, attack, the board said it would launch a third-party investigation, but in the five months following the shooting, it took no action. Donnelly declared on May 10, 2022, that an independent review of Michigan's deadliest school shooting at Oxford High School would not be conducted until criminal and civil litigation is over.

Then, on May 17, he reversed course, announcing the board would hire Guidepost Solutions to perform an investigation and full accounting of the attack that killed four students and injured seven people.

Five months later, Donnelly resigned from the board, alleging that although he had worked hard to get answers to questions, demand accountability from the district and create a timeline of what happened after the Nov. 30 school massacre at Oxford High, the district's lawyers roadblocked him.

The Guidepost report is the first comprehensive look at what school officials did and did not do in the days leading up to the attack, the day of the attack and immediately after.

Interviews with community members, students, Oxford High School staff, teachers and family have been ongoing for about 17 months. The student gunman and his parents were not made available for interviews.

This comes despite Oxford school district lawyers advising six employees facing lawsuits in the 2021 Oxford High School shooting not to cooperate with the independent investigation into the attack, adding "it may make defending the lawsuits more difficult," according to an email obtained by The Detroit News.

The cost for the Guidepost review is around $300,000.

More:Families shattered by Oxford shooting share their heartache and hopes

In May, Guidepost also issued a 179-page report scrutinizing the district's current security measures. That report determined that threat assessment teams at Oxford Community Schools only inquired about access to firearms involving troubled students half of the time after the November 2021 mass shooting at the high school.

Earlier this month, Oxford's interim superintendent outlined a number of changes made in the district to address the concerns outlined in the first Guidepost report. She said those changes have put Oxford Community Schools ahead of any other Michigan school district in terms of prevention.

What is Guidepost?

Guidepost Solutions is a New York-based international firm that performs investigations, compliance, monitoring, and security and technology consulting. Its past clients include the University of Michigan and the Southern Baptist Convention.

Andrew J. O'Connell, Guidepost's president of investigations, and Bradley Dizik, executive vice president of technology, together led the team that investigated the Oxford attack.

O'Connell is a former federal prosecutor and former special agent with the U.S. Secret Service. O'Connell was an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York and a litigation attorney in Washington, D.C., involved in civil, criminal, white collar and government enforcement actions.

Dizik, an attorney and member of the bar in Washington, D.C., and New York, is a crisis adviser, compliance expert and experienced investigator for the company. He has also served as a court-appointed receiver and had key roles on U.S. Department of Justice monitorships, the company website says.

In January, Guidepost officials reported "extraordinary interference" with their investigation after educators and administrators at Oxford Community Schools were advised not to participate in interviews with the firm.

In 2020, the University of Michigan hired Guidepost to help assess and change the culture of sexual misconduct surrounding numerous accused faculty members, including former Provost Martin Philbert.

Guidepost was charged with helping the university create "meaningful policy reform and cultural change at UM," officials said. UM hired the consulting firm in December 2020 for $400,000 to work with the university to make recommendations about how an environment intolerant of sexual misconduct can be created and how trust can be regained. 

jchambers@detroitnews.com