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A district judge has ordered the Oxford Community Schools district to preserve all electronic evidence relevant to last week's shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan. The request comes amid several large lawsuits following the tragedy.
U.S. District Judge Terrence Berg issued the order late Friday after lawyers alleged that the district is destroying evidence related to the mass shooting, according to the Detroit Free Press.
On November 30, 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley fatally shot four students and injured several others. The teen has been charged with murder.
"Not only did defendants fail to take necessary steps to preserve the evidence, but they willfully destructed the evidence by deleting the webpages and social media accounts," lawyer Nora Hanna wrote in a Friday filing, according to the Detroit Free Press. "Plaintiffs cannot continue to be blindsided by the defendants by having to search for what evidence is being destroyed or altered."
Hanna is representing Oxford students Riley Franz, 17, and Bella Franz, 14. Riley was shot in the neck while her sister Bella witnessed the attack as they both were exiting a bathroom.
On Thursday, attorney Geoffrey Fieger announced two $100 million lawsuits against the school district.
Lawyers claimed on Friday that some evidence on social media has gone missing or was destroyed, including a LinkedIn profile of one of the defendants mentioned in the lawsuit.
Oxford school attorney Timothy J. Mullins denied these allegations and said that the school district has been working with investigators on the case.
"It's a lie. It's disgusting," Mullins said, according to the Detroit Free Press "People think that the school district is withholding information? Everything that we have has been given to the prosecutor. Everything they want we've given to them."
Mullins said the employee behind the LinkedIn profile hasn't worked at the school district in over a year. "This man has been defamed," he added. "I've asked Fieger to remove him from the lawsuit and he won't."
Fieger said during the press conference on Thursday that the lawsuits are alleging that the counselors, teachers and school administrators failed to protect Oxford High School students, and "therefore violated the civil rights of the Oxford High School students who were injured and killed during this slaughter."
In a Friday statement reported by The Detroit News, Mullins called the lawsuits "bombastic stunts masked as legal filings [that] do a disservice to the people of Oxford and the people of Michigan."
"School employees continue to receive death threats, and Mr. Fieger is throwing gasoline on the fire with his shameless, callous and irresponsible tactics and angry rhetoric," he added.
Judge Berg did not mention the allegations of evidence destruction in his order on Friday.
The school district has been asked to produce information relevant to the shooting, including all of Crumbley's files, potentially available footage of his parents Jennifer and James, communications about possible past threats, and the employment records of all staff, counselors, and teachers, according to the Detroit Free Press.
Newsweek contacted Hanna, Fieger, the court and the school district for comment and will update this piece with any response.
About the writer
Fatma Khaled is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. politics, world ... Read more