MONDAY, MAY 23 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
entered a bathroom with the
backpack, where police would
later find a journal with 21 pages
detailing plans for “the biggest
school shooting in Michigan’s
history.”
He exited with the gun.
Reina still doesn’t know when
he encountered her sister or why
she wasn’t already in class. The
lawsuit could lead to more an-
swers about what happened that
day. But Reina knows she’ll never
get an answer for her biggest
question.
Why Hana?A win for Oxford
Under a muddled April sky,
Reina stepped onto the field at
Oxford High for the first lacrosse
game of the season, against Davi-
son High. She was wearing a
white jersey with the school’s
name and Hana’s chosen num-
ber: 12.
The team had reserved a dif-
ferent jersey — No. 1 — for her
sister, sliding it onto the back of a
folding chair, where two bou-
quets of purple and yellow flow-
ers rested.
Before the game began, a mo-
ment of silence was announced
over the loudspeaker.
“Hana could not wait to start
playing lacrosse with her best
friends and sister,” a sports
broadcaster said. “We all miss
the radiance she brought to the
world, both on and off the field.”
Reina dropped her head as the
crowd went quiet.
In the bleachers, her parents,
in long underwear and winter
parkas, huddled against the rain
under an umbrella. Hana might
have been with them, Reina
thought, if she hadn’t made the
varsity team on her first try.
“I just kept thinking,” Reina
said later, “about how it was the
first — and not the last — game
without Hana.”
Reina retied her gold cleats
and snapped o n her pink goggles.
She tossed aside her winter
gloves to better grip her lacrosse
stick, hands numb with cold.
With each goal against Davi-
son came the sound of cowbells.
Her dad whooped as Reina
scored twice. Her mom’s eyes
filled with tears.
Then, in the last few minutes
of the game, Reina darted down
the field and lobbed the yellow
ball into the other team’s net.
She’d scored the final goal of the
game — and a win for Oxford
High.
But Hana hadn’t seen it.PHOTOS BY EMILY ELCONIN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
ABOVE: A jersey in honor of Hana and a pair of cleats on display in the stands at a game against Royal Oak High.
BELOW: Hana displayed pictures, notes, key chains and other items on a memory board at her home.has pleaded not guilty to four
counts of first-degree murder.
His parents, Jennifer and James
Crumbley, a lso pleaded n ot guilty
to charges of involuntary man-
slaughter for allowing their son
access to a weapon.
Their preliminary hearings
made Reina angry.
The day of the shooting, Ethan
Crumbley’s first-period English
teacher caught him watching a
video of a shooting on his cell-
phone, according to court testi-
mony and the St. Juliana lawsuit.
Then, his second-period math
teacher reported the boy for
doodling violent images on his
test-review worksheet. Between
questions about congruent trian-
gles, he drew a bullet, a handgun
and a figure punctured by two
gunshots and spurting blood.
The caption read: “blood every-
where.”
“My life is useless,” he also
wrote. “The thoughts won’t stop
help me.”
The Crumbleys were called to
the school but refused to take
their son home, saying they had
to get back to work. So school
officials sent him back to class.
“Given the fact that the child
had no prior disciplinary infrac-
tions,” Throne wrote in a Dec. 4
email to parents, “the decision
was made he would be returned
to the classroom rather than sent
home to an empty house.”
The teen’s backpack was never
searched.
Less than two hours later, heHana might still be alive. In-
stead, school officials allowed a
15-year-old sophomore “posing a
clear threat to himself and oth-
ers” to return to class with a
semiautomatic handgun and
bullets in his red backpack.
School system officials de-
clined to comment on “any new
or ongoing litigation.”
In a February court filing in
response to a similar lawsuit, the
school district’s attorney, Timo-
thy Mullins, said that “defen-
dants deny that they breached
any duties and, further, deny that
they were negligent in any man-
ner.” He added that the district
had been “careful, prudent, prop-
er and lawful.”
Reina wasn’t buying that. Al-
though her father wanted to
protect her from the details of
the shooting, she’d learned ev-
erything she could about her
sister’s death.
“How she died and when she
died,” Reina said. “Those are the
only questions that can be an-
swered.”
She’d watched news confer-
ences and read news articles.
She’d toured the school in Janu-
ary to see the exact spot where
Hana had died. She’d texted with
a 17-year-old classmate — shot in
the chest and both shoulders —
who had been standing near
Hana.
Reina refused to utter the
name of the sophomore accused
of the crimes. The boy, identified
only as “John Doe” in the lawsuit,But he didn’t commit to what
she wanted.
She asked friends to send
emails, too.
“My best friends sister, and
someone that was very close to
me, was MURDERED some-
where we are supposed to feel
safe and you want to put [the
memorial] in a place that’s hid-
den?” Olivia wrote. “Why? I can-
not comprehend why.”
“We are trying to balance the
need to honor the lives of Justin,
Hana, Ta te and Madisyn with
making sure that the sensitivities
and well-being of all students
who must continue at OHS are
taken into account,” replied Ken
Weaver, who had become super-
intendent after Throne’s long-
planned retirement. “... I do not
want to cause anyone more pain
and suffering.”
On the day of lacrosse tryouts,
Reina’s father had gone to the
Board of Education on her be-
half. Ai, 49, stayed home with
Noa. She couldn’t bear hearing
about anything connected to the
shooting.
As Reina performed passing
drills on the lacrosse field, Steve
waited three hours for the
chance to speak during the
school board’s open comment
period.
The temporary memorial “is a
topic that she is extremely pas-
sionate about, and I promised
her that I would speak to you all
this evening about it,” Steve said.
He acknowledged that the dis-
trict’s trauma specialist thought
the memorial might be too pain-
ful for some students. But he’d
read academic papers that sug-
gested memorials could be ben-
eficial. Besides, he added, there
were so many other potential
triggers that already existed in
the school.
“The point comes down to: Is a
picture of my daughter really
going to be a trigger?”
The school would eventually
announce plans to plant four
cherry blossom trees and hang a
banner with hearts and the vic-
tims’ names in the gym. Instead
of the Performing Arts Center,
they said they would put the
temporary memorial outside in
the senior courtyard.
But Steve wasn’t there only to
talk about the memorial. In the
days after the shooting, Throne,
the former superintendent, had
vowed to produce a full account-
ing of the events leading up to
Nov. 30, including the decision to
let the teen charged in the ram-
page remain in class that day.
But the semester was almost
over. School officials had yet to
launch an investigation, turning
down an offer of help from the
Michigan attorney general.
Steve wanted to know what
the school had learned about the
shooting.
“What happened?” he asked
the board. “What went wrong?”
They offered no answers.
“Thank you for coming out,”
the board’s vice president said.
“My heart breaks for you. Appre-
ciate you coming out.”
He called the next speaker.
‘A clear threat’
Reina knew her father had
been considering legal action for
months.
They’d watched as four Oxford
families filed lawsuits against
the school district in state and
federal courts, and as prelimi-
nary hearings revealed new de-
tails about the shooting. What
they learned didn’t square with
the school’s version of events —
that its staff had done nothing
wrong.
But it was only after the school
board meeting that he told her
he’d made up his mind to sue.
While her mom wanted no
part of a lawsuit, Reina told her
father she wanted to be named in
it. She saw it as another way to be
a voice for Hana.
If administrators and guid-
ance counselors had heeded
warning signs, Reina and her
dad argue in the lawsuit they
filed in federal court on April 14,
A memorial outside Oxford High days after four students were fatally shot on Nov. 30.“I’m so glad that youare my little sister.I know we fight a lotbut know I alwayslove you. I wouldn’tk now what to dowithout you.”
Reina St. Juliana,
in a n ote to Hana that her sister
k ept taped to a bureau mirror
i n her bedroom