(WWJ) The family of Madisyn Baldwin, one of four students killed in the Oxford High School shooting, is demanding accountability from the school district.
The family is filing a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the school district and employees who “were responsible for allowing Ethan Crumbley to return to class and murder four students and injure seven others.”
The office of attorney Wolf Mueller, representing Baldwin’s family, says “it is clear after reviewing documents and seeing testimony in the preliminary exam of Curmbley’s parents that the school administrators failed the students of Oxford High School.”
Nicole Beausolei, mother of the 17-year-old Baldwin, spoke during a press conference Wednesday, saying she's moving forward with the lawsuit in part to improve training for teachers and school administrators when it comes to dealing with students' mental health issues.
During her briefing, Beausoleil spoke of her daughter's transfer to Oxford for her senior year.
“I don’t feel like it was the best decision for me, but it was the best decision for her because she was the happiest I’d ever seen her in those three months she was there,” she said. “So it hurts to see that was taken away from her and not blame myself for allowing her to go to a school that I thought she was protected at.”
Related
In addition to the school district, four employees were named in the lawsuit including school superintendent Tim Throne, principal Steven Wolf, dean of students Nicholas Ejack and school counselor Shawn Hopkins.
Authorities have said Crumbley’s parents were called to the school the morning of the shooting to discuss the teen’s concerning behavior, but he was allowed to return to class, and soon opened fire on his classmates.
“While in the school counselor’s office on Nov. 30, with a backpack containing the murder weapon and 48 rounds, a mentally ill child was crying out for heal and two present parents could or would not help him,” Mueller said in a statement. “There were only two grownups in the room, the Oxford High School employees, and they placed the child back into the classroom where he would wreak havoc a short while later. This tragedy was both predictable and preventable.”
Related
The attorney’s office says “this case is about our school systems’ inability to appropriately deal with mental illness, which has clearly been exacerbated by the effects of the pandemic.”
“Madisyn Baldwin, a beautiful young woman with an unlimited future, lost her life because of the school district’s failure to adequately train counselors to deal with mental illness or the counselors’ choice to ignore their training. Either way, this tragedy should have been avoided.”
Baldwin was one of four students killed in the school shooting, along with Tate Myre, Hana St. Juliana and Justin Shilling.
Related
