MSU student who lost pals in Oxford school shooting relives horror
A freshman at Michigan State University who lost two close friends in the mass shooting at Oxford High School in 2021 frantically called her mother when gunfire erupted across the street on her campus Monday night.
“She said, ‘Mom, I hear gunshots … What’s going on?’” the student’s mom, Jennifer Mancini, told the Detroit Free Press early Tuesday. She asked for her daughter’s name not to be published.
Three people were killed and at least five others were injured after a gunman opened fire at the Michigan campus Monday night before turning the gun on himself — which also fell on the eve of the 5-year anniversary of the deadly Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in Parkland, Florida.
“I can’t believe this is happening again,” the mom, who had just spent the past year helping her daughter cope with losing two of her closest friends on Nov. 30, 2021.
In that incident, 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley used a 9mm handgun to slaughter four students and injure six other students and a teacher at Oxford High School in Oakland County, Michigan.
Mancini said her daughter was not at her high school on the day of the attack.
In October, the disturbed teen pleaded guilty to a total of 24 murder and terrorism charges in the attack at the Detroit-area school.
Classmates Madisyn Baldwin, Tate Myre, Hana St. Juliana and Justin Shilling were slaughtered in that shooting.
“She said that she had PTSD. She said she can’t believe this is happening again,” Mancini told the Free Press.
The woman said her daughter’s other friends from Oxford High managed to get out of East Lansing after Monday’s attack, but her daughter was stuck on campus because she was too close to the shooting.
“She’s in the heart of it and can’t get out. She said, ‘Mom I just want to come home, I want to hold you,’” Mancini said. “I told her, ‘Turn all the lights out, lock the door, turn your ringer off on your phone and just be quiet until this is over.’”
When she got word that the 43-year-old shooter — who has been identified as Anthony Dwayne McRae — took his own life, she shared the news with her daughter.
“I’m hoping that this is the end — and what a coward,” Mancini told the paper.
“I told her to try to get some rest. She just wants to come home … she said, ‘Get me out of here,’” she said. “She’s still in shock a little bit, and i think she’s just feeling for the kids.”
Mancini added that her daughter’s dad was on his way to MSU to pick their child up.
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