PONTIAC, Mich. – Multiple students who were shot and injured by the Oxford High School shooter in 2021 shared statements on Friday at the shooter’s sentencing hearing.
Four students were murdered and six other students were injured at the school on Nov. 30, 2021. The Oxford shooter also shot and injured a teacher.
At the shooter’s sentencing hearing that began Friday, Dec. 8, four of the students who were shot spoke in the courtroom. Here’s what they said.
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Kylie Ossege
Kylie Ossege was a senior at Oxford High School when the Oxford shooter opened fire on students during school hours. She was shot in the attack and was severely injured. She talked about how the shooter took her innocence, and what her experience was like.
“Before my fifth hour class, me and my dear friend, Riley Franz, were in the hallway socializing with our peers, and all of a sudden, I thought a balloon popped,” she said. “I turned and I fell right to the ground. I remember hearing screams. I saw running. But I couldn’t run. I was already down.”
Kylie said she was lying on the ground and realized what happened, and she thought she was going to die. She said she tried to get up but couldn’t move or feel her legs.
As she called for help, she realized she could hear Hana St. Juliana injured by her side. Kylie said she reached over her head, and could hear Hana groaning in pain beside her.
“Realizing that I wasn’t alone, I kept trying to reassure her, ‘Someone will come help us. Don’t worry. Just keep breathing. Please stay with me.’ I said that to her a thousand times,” Kylie said.
Kiley said she laid on the ground for 15 minutes before help came, hearing the last sounds Hana made.
Hana St. Juliana, 14, was killed in the shooting.
Kylie Ossege says she was hospitalized for weeks after a bullet shattered her right clavicle, broke two of her ribs and grazed her spine, causing a spinal cord injury. She explained how she had to relearn to do basic tasks following the surgery, and how the injury impacted her ability to ride horses, her favorite pastime. She also said she hasn’t been able to work and make money in two years due to her condition.
She then went on to describe how she enrolled at Michigan State University to further her education and carry on with her life, because “no one is ever gonna stop me from living my life to the fullest,” she said, pointing at the shooter in the courtroom.
She expressed how her disability has continued to affect her life. She told the judge that it has been 738 days of constant physical and mental pain.
Watch her full statement below.
Riley Franz
Riley Franz is a former Oxford High School student who was shot and injured in the Nov. 30, 2021, attack. She said the shooting has altered every aspect of her life.
“I can no longer sleep without having flashbacks of a bullet entering one side of my neck and exiting the other,” she said. “My entire existence has been consumed by fear, and that I will once again have to experience the pain and the suffering that I felt on Nov. 30.”
Riley Franz was reportedly shot in the neck in the mass shooting. She said now, she finds it hard to even sit in a classroom at college because she feels anxious and afraid.
“I cannot remember what it’s like to feel safe and secure in any space that I occupy,” she said.
She went on to say how she mourns the person she used to be and the life she had before the shooting.
“Pieces of me shattered that day, and two years later, I am still struggling to put them back into place,” She said. “But every day, I choose not to allow what a selfish individual decided to do to break me. I, Riley Franz, am a survivor of gun violence. I, Riley Franz, am a survivor of a terrible epidemic caused by a broken system. But I refused to be known as a victim at the hands of an individual with no regard for others.
“His selfishness will not consume my identity. I am so much more than a victim.”
Watch her full statement below.
Student who got trapped in bathroom
There were two students who spoke during the sentencing hearing who are minors, and therefore we are not sharing videos of their statements, and we will not identify them.
One such student, a boy, was trapped in the bathroom at the time of the shooting with 17-year-old Justin Shilling, who was shot and died the next day.
The boy said his school, community, and family have “endured an unimaginable amount of hurt, pain, and trauma.”
“On that day, I was trapped in the bathroom with the perpetrator and Justin Shilling,” he said. “We were stuck, helpless and cornered, with no defense. I was right there when he was shot and killed, yet I couldn’t do anything about it.”
He said it doesn’t feel real that someone could have the capacity to kill others without any remorse or cause.
“It was, and always will be, the most terrifying moment of my life, being cornered with no option but to run out of the bathroom as fast as I could, hoping to live,” he said. “Even after leaving the bathroom, I could see bodies on the floor, blood everywhere, and knew that some of my peers were now gone.”
Student who was shot in leg
Another student who was shot in the Oxford shooting delivered a statement during the sentencing hearing. But, because he’s a minor, we are not identifying him.
The student, who was a freshman at the high school in 2021, said he remembered the warning signs in the weeks leading up to the attack.
“Around the end of October, threats started happening at the school,” he said. “I remember the deer head and a picture of a bird in a jar. I remember being on the bus and my friend showed me in a group chat a threat that scared me enough to call my mom and ask to come home.
“I didn’t come home that day. I also didn’t get shot that day. I remember that was the first time I was really scared that something could happen.”
He also talked about Nov. 30, 2021.
“By the time I realized (the shooting was real), I was staring at Tate Myre, and he was shot and he died,” the student said. “I tried to run into my classroom. I didn’t know I’d been shot until my friend told me I was hit. He said that we needed to get out of there.
“Some girl asked me if this was real, and I remember looking down at my leg, seeing the blood, but still not feeling anything.”
The mother of the student delivered an emotional statement afterward, expressing how difficult the recovery has been for her son and their family. She said they still struggle daily to cope with the injury and the mental impact the shooting had.
Watch her statement below.
Four students -- 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana; 16-year-old Tate Myre; 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin; and 17-year-old Justin Shilling -- were shot and killed in the Nov. 30, 2021, Oxford shooting. Six other students and one teacher were shot and injured.
The shooter has been convicted of 24 charges, including first-degree murder and terrorism, and faced a possible sentence of life in prison without parole.