Jennifer Chambers
The Detroit News
OAKLAND COUNTY, Mich. — The Oakland County, Michigan, Board of Commissioners approved $500,000 on Thursday for an independent review of the emergency response to the 2021 Oxford High School attack.
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The board unanimously approved the funds and a resolution calling for an after-action review of the mass school shooting that killed four students and injured seven others, including a teacher, on Nov. 30, 2021.
Board chair David T. Woodward, D-Royal Oak, and commissioner and minority caucus chair Michael Spisz, R-Oxford, co-authored a resolution that said it is “imperative” to conduct a thorough and independent review to evaluate the response to the mass shooting “to assess the effectiveness of emergency management, law enforcement and Fire/Emergency Medical actions, and identify lessons learned for future preparedness.”
The review, to be performed by a third party hired by the county through a request for proposal process, will “provide an unbiased analysis of the response and recovery efforts, including the coordination among law enforcement, emergency services and other stakeholders, and offer recommendations for improving safety measures, response and recovery protocols,” the resolution said.
The independent firm will be asked to collect data, interview key participants, analyze the response and recovery efforts, and produce a detailed report with actionable recommendations that will contribute to the enhancement of public safety and emergency response strategies, the resolution said.
The findings and recommendations of the review will be “crucial for informing policy changes, training programs and resource allocation aimed at preventing future tragedies and improving community safety,” the resolution said.
No independent after-action review of the emergency response in Oxford has been conducted. The review is typically undertaken by an outside agency to learn from the actions taken by the coordinating police agency and its partners during a mass shooting incident.
The developments come after The Detroit News reported last month on questions over potential dispatch delays to the shooting.
The appropriation was unanimously approved by 17 members of the board. Two were absent.
The one-time funding will come from the county’s fund balance and go to the Emergency Management and Homeland Security Department to contract with an independent firm with experience in performing after-action review of similar incidents.
The commissioners said the independent firm’s final report will be made public.
Woodward said Thursday he continues to draft a formal policy that would require after-action reviews for all mass shootings in Oakland County. He has said he wants all mass shooting events to be independently reviewed, including the June 15 shooting at a Rochester Hills splash pad that wounded nine people.
An Oakland County spokesman said the county would issue a request for a proposal by mid-September to identify firms capable of conducting the independent review of the emergency response to the attack.
Buck Myre, whose son Tate was murdered in the attack, said Thursday he welcomes the review of the police and emergency response, and has many questions about the attack that remain unanswered nearly three years later.
“One thing (Oakland County Sheriff Michael) Bouchard has said was they were still getting 911 calls of gunshots, which is why EMS didn’t enter the building. There is typically an ‘all clear’ given. I have never been given that information. I want to know when that happened,” Myre said. “Could EMS have come in sooner?”
Myre said the idea that victims would be upset by a review is not accurate. Questions raised by fire chiefs about dispatch times remain unanswered as well, he said.
“I would rather know the full story,” Myre said. “In the professional world when things go bad and there is an event, we have a post mortem. What could we have done better. What did we do good. That’s I what I want the system to to do. This is where we failed. This is where we did good. At the end of the day we have to learn from these tragedies.”
The News reported that Sheriff Michael Bouchard’s office declined to participate in a third-party after-action review as requested by Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter’s office in January, according to Coulter’s spokesperson and a contemporaneous email from a county homeland security official. Coulter sought the independent review.
The Sheriff’s Office denied declining to participate in the third-party review.
Maj. Christopher Wundrach, an executive commander for Bouchard, previously told The News the office and staff fully participated in the independent investigation undertaken by Guidepost Solutions. That review and its report, however, were limited to investigating the school district’s role and response to the attack, not emergency responders.
The News reported that two area fire chiefs claimed that Oakland County Sheriff’s Office dispatchers took too long to call them to the scene of the shooting. Although the concerns became public last month, one chief privately called for a review of the possible delays in the days immediately following the shooting, and the sheriff’s department found the concerns to be unfounded.
Coulter said in a statement after the vote that he appreciated the county board approving the funds for the review.
“While we hope we never have to use them, developing plans for emergencies and crises is a necessity and helps make our response to events more efficient and effective,” he said. “Reviews like these help ensure we update and improve those plans so that Oakland County can quickly activate and provide the best possible resources to our residents and our communities.”
Anthony Asciutto, whose son, John, was shot at Oxford High School, said he wants the review.
“If (Bouchard’s) 911 was not working because of poor maintenance or underfunding, he should want to know that info. And pay whatever tax dollars to get a third-party report done … kids were murdered and my boy was shot. I would like to know if the fire departments that were not notified believe they could have saved lives,” Asciutto said.
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