OXFORD, Mich. (WXYZ) — These past two years have been tough for the Oxford community. All Oxford Community Schools were closed on Thursday for “Wildcat Remembrance Day.”
It was a day for students and their families to support one another as they deal with painful memories.
“This community, this school district, these children, these families, they will never be the same,” said Emily Busch.
Busch’s son, Andrew, is currently a junior at Oxford High. Andrew was a freshman back on November 30th, 2021 when a shooter walked into the school and opened fire.
“For me, just for those few seconds of not knowing if my son was okay… I don’t want any other parent or families or children to ever have to live through,” said Busch.
Four students were killed during the shooting. Tate Myre, Madisyn Baldwin, Hana St. Juliana, and Justin Shilling all lost their lives that day. Busch says her son was not physically hurt during the shooting but he is mentally traumatized from it.
Over the past two years, she has found ways to help him cope with the tragedy.
“For our family, we have open dialogue,” Busch added.
“My son knows that this is a safe place to be able to talk about it. I have been able to provide trauma-informed mental health care for my son.”
Busch says while it was scary letting her son go back to the high school, she believes school officials have taken steps to ensure students are safe.
“They have physical safety measures, they have the Evolv System, we have zero eyes,” said Busch. “We have other different types of protocols that are now hopefully in place.”
One thing is for certain, no one in Oxford will forget November 30th, 2021.
“One of the scariest days of my life,” said Busch. “But I can tell you that it pales in comparison to the 1,700 kids that ran for their lives and witnessed things that they should never have to remember.”
For the sake of Transparency, we do want to be clear that Emily Busch is running for Congress against current Representative John James.
We reached out to his campaign, which released the following statement:
John James has championed a bipartisan school safety package in the House. He is a leader on the issue of school safety and leading federal legislation to address this heartbreaking issue.
