On March 1 at 11:12 a.m., Troy police received a call from a 39-year-old woman saying she had been shot by her 52-year-old husband who had fled their house after shooting her. The incident provoked surrounding schools, Hamilton Elementary School and Troy High School to go into a lockdown.
The March 1 lockdown released similar emotions from the November 30, Oxford High School shooting for Troy High School students.
“Prior to the lockdown, I had heard around school that there had been a threat at Oxford and that something went down but there hadn’t been news yet,” said Troy High School senior, Mia Simone. “I remember going to my sixth hour English class and someone had the local news playing on their phone that had the news of the shooting and we didn’t do our lesson in English because we all needed a moment to breathe.”
After the November 30 incident at Oxford High School, surrounding Oakland County schools took a variety of different measures to address student concerns over school safety, including Troy Athens High School, which shut down classes for Thursday and Friday following the shooting. Students admitted that the anxiety over something happening again, still lingered the following week.
“The week after the shooting happened, I was very on edge every day I went to school, ” said Simone. “My friends and I often talked about how paranoid we felt coming to school, in a constant state of panic in case something horrific like Oxford could happen in our school. During our lockdown I first felt this panic, but as the week went on my anxiety grew even more and so did the fears of possibly being in a similar situation.”
While anxieties continued to grow, so did rumors within classrooms and across social media, students admitted.
“Once the Oxford shooting had happened some people were saying it was part of a joint effort called ‘hit week’, and they were targeting a bunch of other schools,” said 18-year-old Shreya Kalyan. “It definitely made me nervous but knowing that I could talk to people and that we were all in the same boat gave me some security just knowing we were in this together.”
It was conversations with teachers and faculty, who shared similar fears, that helped put students like Kalyan’s minds at ease.
“Our teachers have definitely given us a good support system,” said Kalyan. “The day after Oxford, we had conversations in every class about how we felt and what we were worried about. Teachers are always like ‘you can talk to us’ but it was nice for them to actually do just that, and actually talk to us.”
During the March 1 incident, Troy school district faculty did their best to keep students at ease while taking proper precautions.
“We did not share information with students, the lockdown was external only,” said Troy school District Superintendent Richard Machesky. “Students were able to go about their normal indoor routines.”
Police are continuing to investigate the alleged shooting on March 1. After arriving at the scene, officers found the body of a young woman assumed to be the daughter of the suspect. Officers transported the woman to a hospital and were able to make contact with the shooter and located him at the Northfield Hills condominium complex, off of Long Lake road, where he shot himself and was later pronounced dead at the hospital. Police said the shooting was a domestic disturbance that escalated. Once the threat was eliminated, Troy schools were notified and resumed classes as normal.