MSU student who lost pals in Oxford school shooting relives horror
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Some freshmen who survived Monday’s deadly rampage at Michigan State University had dodged another local school massacre only about a year earlier.
One of the miracle students — a young woman whose two pals died when teen Ethan Crumbley opened fire at their Oxford High School, about an hour and half away from MSU, in late 2021 — called her mother as gunfire erupted on the university’s campus Monday night.
“She said, ‘Mom, I hear gunshots … What’s going on?’ ” the student’s mother, Jennifer Mancini, told the Detroit Free Press on Tuesday, speaking on the condition that her daughter’s name not be published.
“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.’ ”
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Three people were killed and at least five others were injured when 43-year-old ex-con Anthony Dwayne McRae opened fire in two MSU buildings before turning the gun on himself.
His motive is still unknown, but in an eerie apparent coincidence, Monday was the eve of the fifth anniversary of the deadly Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in Parkland, Fla.
“I can’t believe this is happening again,” said the shaken MSU student’s mom, who had just spent the past year helping her daughter cope with losing two of her closest friends in the slaughter at the girls’ former high school, Oxford, on Nov. 30, 2021.
Crumbley, 15, used a 9mm handgun to kill four students and injure six other kids and a teacher there. In October, he pleaded guilty to a total of 24 murder and terrorism charges in the case.
Mancini said that thankfully, her daughter was not at the high school on the day of the attack but had friends FaceTime her from there during the carnage.
Another MSU student, Emma Riddle, tweeted around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday that she was among the former Oxford students who had to evacuate the high school during Crumbley’s attack.
“Tonight, I am sitting under my desk at Michigan State Univeristy, once again texting everyone ‘I love you,’ ” she wrote. “When will this end?
Andrea Ferguson described how her daughter – another survivor of the Oxford shooting — sheltered in place at MSU on Monday night, too.
“I never expected in my lifetime to have to experience two school shootings,” Ferguson told ClickOnDetroit.com. “There’s several kids there that our daughter is friends with that are going through the same thing.”
She said her daughter, who she also did not want named, “had just ended class and hopped on the bus and went across campus and called me — and while we were on the phone, all of the sudden, she started getting text messages.
Michigan State University community reacts to mass shooting on campus
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“It was like reliving Oxford all over again,” Ferguson said, adding that the family this week was celebrating her daughter being cancer-free for 10 years.
“[She’s] unbelievably terrified, but I have to say, once the reality kicked in, she knew what to do — and that’s what’s important is that the kids know what to do,” the mom told ClickOnDetroit.com.
“It’s really, really surreal to have to worry about this, and to know exactly what to do. I mean, my husband and I both went into action like never before,” Ferguson added.
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Mancini said her daughter told her “she had PTSD” from it all.
“She said she can’t believe this is happening again,” the mom said.
The woman said her daughter has other friends from Oxford High who attend MSU with her in East Lansing. They were able to get out of the area during McRae’s rampage, but her daughter was stuck on campus because she was too close to the shooting, the mom said.
Follow The Post’s coverage of the tragic shooting at Michigan State University
When Mancini got word that the shooter 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,’ ” the mom said of her daughter. “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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