OAKLAND COUNTY (WWJ) - It's been exactly one year since the tragic events unfolded at Oxford High School, greatly impacting and forever changing the lives of students, staff, parents, the community and local law enforcement, authorities reflected.
Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard described the tragedy of Nov. 30, 2021 as "the worst kind of thing that can visit a community" during a live interview with WWJ's Jonathan Carlson on Wednesday.
"You know, there's lots of tragedies we face and see every day, but this is one of those ones that's so horrific because of how it really strikes at the heart of safety and security and your kids going off to school and having a fun day," Bouchard reflected.
Tate Myre, 16, Hana St. Juliana, 14, Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and Justin Shilling, 17, were killed that fateful day when then 15-year-old student open fired at Oxford High School in Oakland County.
Six other students and a teacher were also injured.
The self-professed killer, Ethan Crumbley, pleaded guilty on Oct. 24, 2022 to all 24 felony charges related to the shooting, including four counts of first-degree murder and one count of terrorism.
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"It affects so many people, you know, obviously, the most impacted are those families that were crushed by losing their lovely children and the potential there, but there were so many others that were injured physically," Bouchard continued. "Then there's countless others that are mentally and emotionally injured and so it just has such a long and widespread impact on so many people."
Bouchard said he has been studying mass casualty situations and active shooter scenarios around the world for over two decades, bringing lessons from each situation back to Oakland County and incorporating them into training and protocols for local deputies.
Most of what law enforcement needed to do on Nov. 30, 2021, were procedures that were already in place in anticipation that a mass shooting "might visit us," Bouchard added.
"We're constantly looking to learn lessons from other tragedies and other situations around the world. After Mumbai, I asked all the police chiefs to come together so that we could all train on the same protocol to immediately go in seek out a threat and to eliminate the threat," the sheriff said of the 2008 mass shootings and bombing attacks in India that saw a total of 175 people killed and more than 300 wounded.
"No hesitation, no staging, no delay and we started doing that. We've now trained over 3,000 police officers in Oakland County," Bouchard continued. "We all have the same ethos -- get in there, stop the threat because if they're giving up to us, or committing suicide or shooting at us, one thing they're not doing is looking for more victims and so that's been in place for a year."
In the year since the mass school shooting, local law enforcement is haunted with what could've been done differently and how situations can be handled in the future.
Bouchard said stopping potentially tragic incidents before they happen is the biggest key.
"We can certainly look for how can we do things a little smarter, a little better, but most importantly, how to prevent something," Bouchard honed in. "And the best way to prevent these is is to have people talk. Students and teachers are most likely to hear or see something that's concerning, they have to share it with the school and the school has to share it with us or if we hear it, first share it with school, and work together."
From there, Bouchard explained that law enforcement will complete an assessment of every threat and all cases are taken seriously, whether or not the person who made the threat meant to carry it out or not.
"That's a process that needs to be fully taken advantage of in every instance. And if it's not things can fall through the cracks," he said.
Bouchard told Carlson that students, staff and other community members should never feel uncomfortable calling the police about something concerning.
"Never feel like you're burdening us, we got to check out 1,000 nothing's in this one real deal," he stressed.
In the 365 days since the first calls came in about an active shooter at Oxford, Bouchard said his deputies and other local law enforcement agencies still see and feel the emotional impacts within the community.
Protect and serve, Bouchard explained, goes deeper than responding to a 911 call.
"You can see the need," he said. "There's so many, I've never had so many hugs from teenage kids,,, you can see the need to reach out and be reassured and secure and so we've tried to give them that that envelope, that safety and that feeling of, 'we're going to do whatever we need to do and whatever we can do to help keep you safe.'"
Now and forever, the Sheriff promised, he and his deputies will be here for the community, "bond together," as they pick up the pieces and find the strength to honor, remember and reflect in the long days, months and years ahead.