‘Reliving Oxford yet again.’ Some MSU college students and oldsters endure second mass taking pictures in 15 months | CNN

CNN
 — 

Some Michigan State College college students who survived Monday’s mass taking pictures – and their dad and mom – had already been by way of an analogous, horrific expertise.

“I by no means anticipated in my lifetime to need to expertise two faculty shootings,” Andrea Ferguson instructed CNN affiliate WDIV. “There’s a number of youngsters there that our daughter’s buddies with which are going by way of the identical factor.”

Ferguson instructed the station her daughter and different classmates have been additionally survivors of the November 30, 2021, taking pictures at Oxford Excessive Faculty, which is about 80 miles northeast of the MSU campus in East Lansing.

CNN has reached out to Ferguson for remark.

Three MSU college students have been killed and 5 others critically wounded on Monday by a person who then died from an obvious self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities mentioned.

In 2021, a 15-year-old with a 9 mm handgun fatally shot 4 Oxford Excessive Faculty college students and wounded six different individuals, together with a instructor.

“I really feel for our youngsters and younger individuals,” East Lansing Mayor Ron Bacon instructed CNN on Tuesday.

“We now have a whole technology that has grown up with this, many occasions over, from elementary all the way in which to date, they reside with this your complete time,” Bacon added.

Monday’s assault occurred hours earlier than the five-year anniversary of the mass taking pictures at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty in Parkland, Florida. It marked the 67th mass taking pictures – with 4 or extra shot, not together with a gunman – in 2023, based on information from the Gun Violence Archive.

Ferguson instructed WDIV her daughter was getting on a bus on one other a part of campus when she began receiving texts in regards to the taking pictures.

“It was like reliving Oxford yet again,” mentioned Ferguson, who had been on the cellphone along with her daughter when the younger girl acquired texts in regards to the newest mass taking pictures.

Ferguson mentioned her daughter had began attending MSU about one month in the past. The mom described her daughter as “unbelievably terrified” and mentioned it was “actually, actually surreal” to relive such a horrific expertise.

US Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, mentioned it was haunting to see a teenager sporting an “Oxford Robust” sweatshirt in footage from MSU after Monday’s taking pictures.

“As a consultant of Oxford, Michigan, I can’t consider that I’m right here once more doing this 15 months later,” Slotkin mentioned throughout a information convention Tuesday. “And I’m full of rage that now we have to have one other press convention to speak about our youngsters being killed of their colleges.”

She added, “We now have youngsters in Michigan who’re dwelling by way of their second faculty taking pictures in underneath a 12 months and a half. If this isn’t a wake-up name to do one thing, I don’t know what’s.”

Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard confirmed deputies from his workplace responded to each the Oxford Excessive and MSU shootings.

“So very many ideas are working by way of my head proper now after being on Michigan State’s campus final evening in the course of the tragedy,” he tweeted Tuesday.

“To our Oxford neighborhood, I do know that that is terribly traumatic. Know that we’re right here for you.”

Ferguson instructed WDIV the newest tragedy is “simply one other hurdle to recover from.”