Oxford High School teacher injured in mass shooting sues district, several ex-school officials
(CBS DETROIT) — A teacher who was injured in the 2021 Oxford High School shooting has filed a lawsuit against the district and several former school officials.
Molly Darnell was the only adult and Oxford school employee who was shot by Ethan Crumbley in the Nov. 30 mass shooting that claimed the lives of Justin Shilling, 17, Madisyn Baldwin, 17, Tate Myre, 16, and Hana St. Juliana, 14. Seven others, including Darnell, were injured in the shooting.
Darnell, who provided emotional testimony during the shooter's Miller Hearing in July 2023 as well as during the manslaughter trials of the shooter's parents, Jennifer and James Crumbley, in January and March 2024, was shot in the left shoulder and had to use her cardigan as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, the Oxford Community School District and the following five employees who were employed by the district at the time of the shooting are named as defendants:
- Shawn Hopkins, Oxford High School counselor
- Nicholas Ejak, former Oxford Community Schools District dean of students
- Timothy Throne, former Oxford Community Schools superintendent
- Steven Wolfe, former Oxford High School principal
- Kenneth Weaver, former Oxford Community Schools superintendent who took over following Thorne's retirement
The lawsuit alleges the school district and its administrators had a duty to protect district employees and students from foreseeable threats, including a mass shooting.
Darnell, who works as an educational coordinator in the district, alleges in the lawsuit that "it was eminently foreseeable that an act of gun violence like the mass shooting was a probable consequence of their negligent and/or unlawful misconduct. Thus, the negligent and/or unlawful misconduct of OCSD directly and proximately contributed to the harm inflicted upon various Oxford High School students and staff."
Hopkins and Ejak testified during the Crumbleys' trials that they met with the shooter and his parents the day of the shooting and that they had no choice but to send him back to class because they could not remove him unless there was a disciplinary issue.
"However, the truth is that school officials escalated the danger by releasing the shooter back into the school population from a
place of safety and security," the lawsuit states. "They did this despite knowing of the shooter's desire to inflict harm on himself and/or others. These school officials compounded the danger to Oxford High School students and staff by releasing him from a safe zone with an unsearched backpack that contained the deadly weapon that the shooter used to carry out his suicidal or homicidal plans."
The lawsuit claims that because of "Ejak's and Hopkins's deliberate indifference," Darnell suffered "terror, shock, excruciating pain, fear, trauma, severe emotional distress, scarring and disfigurement, wage loss, loss of earning capacity, and will incur future damages, including requiring ongoing mental health counseling."
Darnell is the first Oxford school district employee to file a lawsuit. The families whose children lost their lives in the shooting and those whose children were injured previously filed civil lawsuits against the district.
The shooter was sentenced in December 2023 to life without the possibility of parole, while his parents were sentenced in April to 10-15 years in prison after being found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter.
On Nov. 21, the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office confirmed that it was working with Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel to investigate the shooting.