Teacher injured in Michigan shooting sues district, former school officials

DETROIT — An Oxford High School teacher who was shot during the 2021 attack on the school is suing the district and five former school officials, alleging they exacerbated the risk of a mass shooting by ignoring signs of impending violence.

Molly Darnell filed a civil lawsuit on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit against Oxford Community Schools and two former high schools employees, Shawn Hopkins and Nicholas Ejak, who interacted and assessed the student gunman the day of the attack, ultimately releasing him back to class.

Darnell is the only teacher who was shot and is the first non-student to sue the district, which has faced extensive litigation since the attack on Nov. 30, 2021, that killed four students and injured seven.

Darnell, who remains employed by the district at its Oxford Virtual Academy, is also suing two former superintendents, Tim Throne and Ken Weaver, and former Oxford principal Steven Wolf.

The student gunman fired multiple rounds through a school door and struck Darnell in the shoulder, six inches from her heart. The shooter fired his weapon 33 times in the attack that killed Hana St. Juliana, 14; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; and Justin Shilling, 17.

In the 50-page lawsuit, Darnell alleges that school district officials ignored clear signals of impending gun violence from Ethan Crumbley and engaged in acts which "foreseeably emboldened, motivated or enabled the shooter to successfully engage" in the attack.

The lawsuit alleges that the school district has told the Oxford Community that Ejak, a former dean of students at OHS, and Hopkins, a former OHS counselor, "had no choice" but to send the shooter back to class because their school policy was they could neither send a student home or detain them in the counseling office 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 alleges. "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."

Oxford school officials and the district's attorney were not immediately available for comment on Tuesday.

Darnell's suit, which was filed four days ahead of the three-year anniversary of the shooting, says in the days and weeks leading up to mass shooting, school officials ignored signs that violence was brewing.

At one point, Throne, who was superintendent on the day of the attack, made an announcement on the Oxford High School public address system on Nov. 16, 2021, instructing students to stop spreading rumors and relying on information on social media and reassuring those listening that there were no threats that posed any danger to them at Oxford High School, the suit alleges.

Darnell alleges that Ejak and Hopkins had the authority as school administrators to maintain the shooter in a safe, secure and restricted environment in the counseling office, where, based on the assessment that he was suicidal, he could have been supervised by adults.

"Ejak and Hopkins intentionally concealed (Ethan Crumbley's) mental health crisis, suicidal and homicidal ideations from his teachers and other administrators in the school after releasing him from the counseling office that morning, as such they had no idea that they were at risk of serious and grievous injuries and could take no action to protect themselves or others in the building," the suit alleges.

Darnell has suffered from terror, shock, awareness of imminent death, excruciating pain and fear, the suit says, and is seeking unspecified damages for severe emotional distress, sleep disturbance, nightmares and future damages.

Darnell's attorney, Matthew L. Turner, was not immediately available for comment.

The district and its employees continue to deny any responsibility for the attack. Lawsuits filed by victims and their families have alleged the district failed to protect students and downplayed the threat the killer posed to the school.

All state-filed civil claims against the district have been dismissed based on a judge's finding of government immunity for the district and its employees but remain on appeal. Attorneys representing the families filed an appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court on Oct. 31.

Multiple civil cases filed in federal court by the victims and families were dismissed but remain on appeal. Two defendants continue to face individual claims. Oxford schools are appealing U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith's June ruling that Hopkins and Ejak will continue to face "state-created danger claims." Those cases are before the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

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