Michigan authorities have revealed the identity of the school shooting suspect. The 15-year-old killer has been identified as sophomore Ethan Crumbley.
Crumbley is accused of killing four students and injuring seven others when he allegedly opened fire at his Oxford High School, north of Detroit, on Tuesday.
His father purchased the 9mm Sig Sauer used in the shooting just four days earlier on Black Friday, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said.
Crumbley had posted photos of the gun, and him firing it, in the lead-up to the school shooting, the sheriff added.
According to Fox News, investigators said they are still trying to determine a motive for the deadly shooting because the suspect isn’t speaking to them. However, some classmates have said Crumbley was bullied, according to the Detroit Free Press.
Investigators say Crumbley’s parents, James and Jennifer, advised their son not to speak to authorities following his arrest. Police must get permission from a juvenile’s parents or guardian in order to speak with them, Undersheriff Mike McCabe said.
Meanwhile, investigators are doing a “deep dive” on Crumbley’s social media accounts to try to determine a motive or see if there were any red flags.
Crumbley was featured in the local Oxford Leader newspaper back in 2017 when he spoke of an elementary school group project on poverty and hunger.
I see people on the streets sometimes that are homeless and hungry, and so I feel like I should take action and help them,” he was quoted as saying.
Authorities said late Tuesday they were made aware of social media posts saying there had been threats of a shooting at Oxford, but the sheriff said they didn’t know about the rumors until after the attack.
An Instagram account bearing Crumbley’s name, which has since been deleted, had the phrase “’Now I am become Death, the destroyer of world’. See you tomorrow, Oxford” written in the biography section, according to Fox 2 Detroit.
The sheriff said Crumbley had no previous run-ins with his department and he wasn’t aware of any disciplinary history at school ahead of the shooting.
Authorities swarmed his family home hours after the shooting and were spotted hauling away evidence, including what appeared to be long guns, Fox 2 footage showed.
Crumbley was taken into custody in the school hallway just minutes after deputies arrived around lunchtime.
The teen put his hands up as deputies approached him, the sheriff said, adding that his gun was found to have seven additional rounds in it.
Three of the students who were killed in the shooting were identified Tuesday by authorities as 16-year-old Tate Myre, 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana and 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin. A fourth teen, Justin Shilling, 17, died of his wounds Wednesday.
