SOUTHFIELD, Michigan: The parents of a 17-year-old girl who was shot in the neck at Oxford High School during a mass shooting that left four students dead filed a pair of lawsuits seeking $100 million each against a Michigan school district, saying Thursday that the violence could have been prevented.
The lawsuits were filed in federal court in Detroit and Oakland County Circuit Court by Jeffrey and Brandi Franz on behalf of their daughters, Riley, a senior who was wounded Nov. 30, and her sister Bella, a 14-year-old ninth grader who was next to her at the time she was shot, attorney Geoffrey Fieger said.
The parents attended a news conference Thursday with Fieger in his Southfield offices. Jeffrey Franz appeared stoic, staring ahead as the personal injury lawyer accused school officials and staff at Oxford High of not doing enough to prevent the shooting and protect students.
Brandi Franz sat, often with head bowed. The parents did not address reporters.
The lawsuits are the first known civil suits filed in connection with the shooting. Named in the suits are the Oxford school district, Superintendent Tim Throne, Oxford High School principal Steven Wolf, two counselors, two teachers and a staff member.
Ten students and a teacher were shot at the school in Oxford Township, roughly 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Detroit.
Ethan Crumbley, a 15-year-old sophomore at the school, was arrested at the school and has been charged as an adult with murder, terrorism and other crimes. His parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, later were charged with involuntary manslaughter and arrested.
Personal-injury lawyers have expressed doubt that the school district could be successfully sued for letting Crumbley stay in school. That’s because Michigan law sets a high bar to wring liability out of public schools and other arms of government.
“You have to show that the administration or faculty members were grossly negligent, meaning they had a reckless disregard for whether an injury was likely to take place,” said attorney A. Vince Colella.
Fieger acknowledged Thursday that state law makes it difficult to successfully sue public bodies like school districts. He said a federal lawsuit allows him to subpoena the school district for records and evidence connected to Crumbley and the shooting.
“I understand that this is not going to be easy,” Fieger said. “However, now is the time to do something about it.”
The gun used in the shooting was bought days before by James Crumbley and their son had full access to it, prosecutors said.
The morning before the shooting school officials met with Ethan Crumbley and his parents after a teacher found a drawing of a gun, a bullet and a person who appeared to have been shot, along with messages stating “My life is useless” and “The world is dead.”
The Crumbleys “flatly refused” to take their son home, Throne has said.
The Franz family lives in Leonard, just northwest of Oxford. One of the lawsuits criticized school officials for not expelling, disciplining or searching Crumbley prior to the shooting which allowed Crumbley to return to his classroom “and carry out his murderous rampage.”
The lawsuit alleges civil rights violations under the 14th Amendment and also said the school district “knew or should have known that the policies, procedures, training supervision and discipline” staff members named in the suit “were inadequate for the tasks that each defendant was required to perform.”
“There’s a responsibility that our society shares in protecting our children,” Fieger said. “There is a responsibility among teachers, counselors and school administrators who could easily have prevented and stopped this slaughter.”
Riley Franz was hospitalized following the shooting. She now is recovering at home, Fieger said.
A 17-year-old student — the remaining victim hospitalized from the shooting — was removed Thursday from an intensive care unit, the Oakland County sheriff’s office said.
She was moved to a standard room and was expected to remain in a hospital for the next four to six weeks while undergoing rehabilitation.
On Wednesday, a statement posted on the district’s website by Throne said that after all the facts have been obtained and released through the course of the prosecution, he will recommend to the Oxford Board of Education that the district initiate a review of its entire system “as other communities have done when facing similar experiences.”
“Our goal with all of this is to bring together all of the facts of what happened before, during and after this horrific incident,” he wrote. “We are committed to doing this in a way that allows our community to move forward and does not re-traumatize our community members, who are reeling and suffering from this horrible event.”
The criminal cases against Ethan Crumbley and his parents are being overseen by the Oakland County prosecutor’s office, and Michigan’s attorney general said Tuesday her office will review events that occurred before the mass shooting, despite the district’s rejection of her offer to be its third-party investigator.
The district’s lawyer told the attorney general’s office Monday it was fully cooperating with local law enforcement.
Michigan school district faces two $100m suits after Oxford shootings
https://arab.news/rnhsk
Michigan school district faces two $100m suits after Oxford shootings
No sign of progress on first day of Ukraine war talks in Geneva
- Two previous rounds of negotiation between Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi failed to yield a breakthrough
- Trump put pressure on Ukraine to make a deal, saying they “better come to the table, fast”
GENEVA: Ukrainian and Russian negotiators concluded the first of two days of US-mediated peace talks in Geneva on Tuesday, though neither side signalled they were any closer to ending Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
Negotiations will resume on Wednesday.
The United States has been pushing for an end to the nearly four-year war, but has failed to broker a compromise between Moscow and Kyiv on the key issue of territory.
Two previous rounds of negotiation between the two sides in Abu Dhabi failed to yield a breakthrough.
The latest talks “were very tense,” said a source close to the Russian delegation.
“They lasted six hours. They have now concluded,” the source added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address he was ready “to move quickly toward a worthy agreement to end the war,” but questioned whether Russia was serious about peace.
“What do they want?” he added, accusing them of prioritising missile strikes over “real diplomacy.”
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The ensuing conflict has resulted in a tidal wave of destruction that has left entire cities in ruins, tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians dead and forced millions of people to flee their homes.
- ‘Come to the table, fast’ -
Zelensky has repeatedly said his country is being asked to make disproportionate compromises compared to Russia.
US President Donald Trump on Monday put pressure on Ukraine to make a deal, saying they “better come to the table, fast.”
Russia occupies around one-fifth of Ukraine — including the Crimean peninsula it seized in 2014 — and areas that Moscow-backed separatists had taken prior to the 2022 invasion.
It is pushing for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region as part of any deal, and has threatened to take it by force if talks fail.
But Kyiv has rejected this deeply unpopular demand, which would be politically and militarily fraught, and signalled it will not sign a deal without security guarantees that deter Russia from invading again.
Russia has been slowly capturing territory across the sprawling front line for months.
But its war-time economic worries are mounting, with growth stagnating and a ballooning budget deficit as oil revenues — choked by sanctions — drop to a five-year low.
Ukrainian forces recently made their fastest gains in two-and-a-half years, recapturing 201 square kilometers (78 square miles) last week, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War.
That total includes areas Kyiv and military analysts say are controlled by Russia (72 square kilometers), as well as those claimed by Moscow’s army (129 square kilometers).
The counterattacks likely leveraged the disruption of Russian forces’ access to Starlink, the ISW said, after the satellite Internet firm’s boss, Elon Musk, announced “measures” to end Russia’s use of the technology.
- Breakthrough hopes low -
For the talks in Geneva, the Kremlin reinstated nationalist hawk and former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky as its lead negotiator.
Ukrainian national security secretary Rustem Umerov was leading Kyiv’s side.
Hopes for a breakthrough are low.
Even before the talks were underway, Ukraine accused Russia of undermining peace efforts by launching 29 missiles and 396 drones in a series of attacks overnight that authorities said killed at least four people, wounded others and cut power to tens of thousands in southern Ukraine.
“The extent to which Russia disregards peace efforts: a massive missile and drone strike against Ukraine right before the next round of talks in Geneva,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga wrote on social media.
A Russian drone strike killed three staff of a power plant in the frontline town of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine, according to energy minister Denys Shmygal.
Another person was killed in the northeastern Sumy region, local officials said.
Russia meanwhile accused Ukraine of launching more than 150 drones overnight, mainly over southern regions and the Crimean peninsula — occupied by the Kremlin in 2014.
An oil depot in southern Russia caught fire, according to officials.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists to expect no major news from the first day of talks.
