OXFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — The 9mm Sig Sauer used to kill 3 people and wound eight others at a Michigan high was bought by the 15-year-old suspect’s dad on Nov. 26, authorities say.
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said late Tuesday that the suspect had practiced shooting with the gun and posted pictures of it and the target. Bouchard said he did not know why the boy’s father bought the gun.
Bouchard said several students from the shooting remain in critical condition, including 14-year-old on ventilator.
Authorities have said they are still trying to determine a motive for the shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford Township.
McCabe said deputies took the shooting suspect — a 15-year-old sophomore — into custody without incident within five minutes of arriving at the school. He said the suspect’s parents visited him where he’s being held and advised their son not to talk to investigators, as is his right.
“Deputies confronted him, he had the weapon on him, they took him into custody,” McCabe said, adding that the suspect wasn’t hurt when he was taken into custody and he refused to say how he got the gun into the school.
He said as far as he knows, the suspect had no prior run-ins with law enforcement.
Authorities didn’t immediately release the names of the suspect or victims.
Tim Throne, the superintendent of Oxford Community Schools, said he didn’t yet know the victims’ names or whether their families had been contacted.
“I’m shocked. It’s devastating,” the shaken superintendent told reporters.
The school was placed on lockdown after the attack, with some children sheltering in locked classrooms while officers searched the premises. They were later taken to a nearby Meijer grocery store to be picked up by their parents.
Robin Redding, the parent of a 12th-grader, told The Associated Press that there had been rumblings of trouble at the school.
“He was not in school today. He just said that ‘Ma I don’t feel comfortable. None of the kids that we go to school with are going today,’” Redding said.
