DETROIT — At least six hours passed from the start of the mass shooting before Michigan State University informed the families of three students of their deaths; much of that time passed as they waited and watched at the MSU Pavilion as other parents picked up their children, according to a parent and minister who were there that night.
MSU had established the pavilion as a safe space hours after the first gunshots were heard on campus around 8:15 p.m. on Feb. 13, and the families of the three students killed were the last ones remaining there, making it obvious who was not going home with their children, the parent and minister said. The parents learned about their children's deaths around 3 a.m. on Feb. 14, the parent and minister said.
That parent, whose child was killed, called the delay in notification and what happened that night "pathetic."
"As parents seeking to reunite with missing loved ones, our purpose of going to the pavilion was only to reunite with those loved ones as quickly as possible," said the parent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Although none of us wanted to learn the terrible news that we did, it would've been helpful for someone to have taken the details of the missing individuals and connect the dots so that the status could've been communicated sooner.
"... There may have been people in charge, and the plan may have been very well-executed, but in our minds, it was the wrong plan for an emergency situation."
The process for identifying people who have died at a crime scene can be complex and slow, experts say, as victim identification must be accurate before next of kin can be notified. Even so, the environment at the pavilion for the families of the MSU students who died prompted a group of ministers to write a letter to university officials offering criticism "in the spirit of cooperation, support and helpfulness" on how to handle similar situations in the future. It suggested awareness of "red flags" and identifying families "early in the process" if possible.
"We believe that there are a few steps that could have been taken that would have helped," read the letter signed by eight interfaith leaders. The letter, obtained by The Detroit News through a Freedom of Information Act request, contained redactions from the university, which argued they were needed to avoid "a clearly unwarranted invasion of an individual's privacy."
MSU spokesman Dan Olsen said identifying the victims took time, and the university was also unaware that the families of the slain MSU students were at the pavilion, even though there were several MSU staff members onsite.
"We are sorry for what our Spartan families experienced," Olsen said.
Roughly 12 minutes after shots were reported outside an MSU classroom in Berkey Hall on Feb. 13, police sent out a campus-wide alert to secure in place and began searching for the shooter. It was more than three hours later, at 11:36 p.m., when MSU officials announced three fatalities and five people with injuries but did not identify them.
Meanwhile, the university set up a family reunification center at the pavilion and invited interfaith clergy members from the MSU Religious Advisors Association to be there to provide pastoral assistance.
There wasn't a way for MSU to make it easy for the families of the students who were killed — 19-year-old Arielle Anderson of Harper Woods, 20-year-old Brian Fraser of Grosse Pointe and 20-year-old Alexandra Verner of Clawson — says the letter sent by the MSU Religious Advisors Association to Allyn Shaw, MSU assistant vice president for student involvement and leadership.
The Rev. Curt Dwyer, president of the MSU Religious Advisors Association, made a brief comment on why the letter was written. "We were there to take care, in any way we could, students, faculty and staff," said Dwyer, lead pastor at Martin Luther Chapel in East Lansing. "Afterwards, as we reflected on it, we had a few thoughts that we thought we'd share with MSU."
The News contacted all of the ministers whose names appeared at the end of the letter. Only one minister, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, was willing to discuss what happened that night.
Only a few dozen parents came to the pavilion, likely because students had already left campus or had been picked up by their parents somewhere else, the minister said. But those who did began to arrive after midnight. They were put in one area of the pavilion, the minister said. MSU shuttled about two dozen students to the pavilion who were put in another area. It wasn't clear if those students had been earlier barricaded where the two shootings took place that night, Berkey Hall and the MSU Union.
Parents and students were reunited throughout the early morning hours.
According to Olsen, there was a list posted of students' names as families went into the pavilion. "We helped them find a meeting location at the pavilion and made sure that the students were OK to leave with the individual who had come to pick them up and also check in with them from a mental health perspective to see if they needed any mental health supports."
After several hours passed, it became apparent which parents likely had children who died in the shooting since they were the only ones left, the minister said. MSU representatives were present, but it was not their responsibility to inform the three families of the deaths of their children. Police had to deliver the information, the minister said.
Those notifications, the minister said, for the families of students who had died in the shooting didn't occur until after 3 a.m., about the time university police publicly announced they were closing the pavilion as a reunification center.
After MSU learned at 1:30 a.m. the identities of the students who had died, Olsen said police started the family notification process by reaching out to law enforcement in the hometowns of the deceased students so they could deliver the news in person.
MSU then became aware that the families were at the pavilion.
"When we became aware the families were at the family assistance center," Olsen said, "we redirected our notification efforts at the pavilion."
The families of the slain students were the last ones in the pavilion, he said, and the notifications occurred at 2:40 a.m., slightly earlier than the timeline of after 3 a.m. cited by the minister.
Explaining the time between identifying the students and notifying the parents, Olsen said MSU police first rendered aid to those critically injured in Berkey Hall and MSU Union. Law enforcement then secured the buildings and areas as crime scenes. It wasn't until the officials from the FBI crime lab showed up and were able to enter Berkey Hall around 12:30 a.m. Feb. 14, along with officials from the Ingham County medical examiner's office, that police were able to get the identifications of the three deceased students, around 1:30 a.m., he said.
FBI special agent and spokeswoman Mara Schneider offered a slightly different timeline. An evidence response team of about a dozen people arrived at Berkey Hall and the MSU Union at 11:30 p.m. Feb. 13 and left before 6 a.m. on Feb. 14, she said.
The team worked to collect forensic evidence from the scene that would chronicle what happened that night for use in any future prosecution and to provide information to families wanting more information. The evidence was turned over to MSU police for investigation, Schneider said.
But Schneider said it wasn't the FBI's responsibility to identify the deceased. That job fell to the medical examiner's office.
How students were identified
Michelle Fox, chief investigator of the Office of the Ingham County Medical Examiner, said she and another investigator arrived at the scenes at 9:30 p.m., before the shooter had been located. Authorities deemed that it was safe to go into the buildings where the shooter had been between midnight and 1:30 a.m.
The process of identifying someone involves numerous steps before searching for personal identification, including taking pictures and surveying the scene before anything can be moved, Fox said.
"We want to be sure we are being extremely diligent and not disturbing evidence that is on them," Fox said.
Fraser was the first to be attended to since he was outside the front of the MSU Union, she said. He did not have identification on him. Police helped identify him by unlocking his cellphone and calling 911 to get his name and compare it to the law enforcement system with his name and driver's license photo. He was transported from the scene to the morgue at Sparrow Hospital and arrived at 2:18 a.m., Fox said.
Fox's colleague worked to identify Verner and Anderson in Berkey Hall. Both were identified with their MSU student identification cards and were transferred from the scene, arriving at Sparrow at 3:23 a.m. and 3:25 a.m., respectively, Fox said.
While the medical examiner is responsible for informing next of kin about a death, officials often work in tandem with law enforcement. Fox said she began speaking with members of the Fraser and Verner families in the early morning hours of Feb. 14 to notify them and explain the next steps, and learned that they had already been notified of their children's deaths by the university police. She spoke with the Anderson family at 8 a.m. Feb. 14.
Fox acknowledged that some time had passed but said standard procedure was followed and notifications occurred as soon as possible.
"All of us at the Medical Examiner's office who perform this job reflect on: 'If this was our loved one, would we want to know as soon as possible?' Absolutely," Fox said. "There is no time frame that we don't notify families. It is one of our top priorities."
Ministers outline recommendations
After the stay-in-place order had been lifted at MSU at 12:28 a.m. Feb. 14, Shaw and Vennie Gore, MSU senior vice president for student life and engagement, asked members of the MSU Religious Advisors Association to provide assistance to students and families at the pavilion, according to the letter written by the ministers.
Among the suggestions the ministers included in their letter was identifying families with injured or deceased children early.
"During any incident where there are casualties (injuries or deaths), the staff person responsible for parent intake needs to watch for 'red flags'; for instance, that they have had no contact with (the) student since the incident and specific knowledge that the student was in the vicinity of the incident," the letter says. "These families need to be identified early in the process if at all possible, and information passed along to those at higher levels of authority."
The two-page letter, which is not dated, acknowledged that MSU's location for parents to pick up their children that night was well-chosen, a plan was in place to help families and students get reunited quickly and staff understood the process.
However, the ministers' letter suggested that should anything similar happen in the future involving injuries or fatalities, MSU should make private or semi-private areas available for those families.
"Staff should intentionally invite those families to those spaces," the letter says. "There will need to be a process for recording which family is in which room, so that when information becomes available about their student, the appropriate authority can find them quickly."
It also suggested that a trained staff person be designated to interact with each family, preferably one staff person per family.
"They could be labeled the 'family advocate' and would work as a liaison between the family and the staff at the reunification center," the letter says. "They should be knowledgeable about the overall process, so that they can help the family know what steps are being taken to find their student."
The family advocate could take information from the families for police or other responders to help in identifying the student, the letter says.
"They may also need to acknowledge the parent's fear, without giving either giving false hope or premature bad news and arrange for other counseling or religious professionals to assist the family while they wait," the letter says. "In the case of death, the family should be told what the next step for them will be in the process; where to go, what they need to do, etc."
The letter ended with the religious professionals saying they are there to serve the MSU community during times of crisis, especially since people often lean on their faith during these times for comfort.
"It would be good to make some intentional provision for notifying and inviting the RAA's help during crisis situations, and perhaps including some RAA members in drills or discussions revolving around these plans," the letter says.
Regarding the ministers' letter, Olsen sent a statement: "The recommendations we have received are being thoughtfully evaluated by university leaders. We are identifying additional opportunities for strengthening our response, and we will continue to advance this important work into the future."
Notifications 'need to get better'
Families involved in other mass shootings also have waited for hours until they learned about the deaths of their loved ones, a time frame that former FBI agent Katherine Schweit calls "the agony of silence."
The families of those killed last year in the shooting at Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and 10 years ago in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., had similar experiences waiting for news.
In Uvalde, where 19 children and two adults were gunned down last May, families waited for up to seven hours on the lawn of the civic center before learning the fates of their loved ones, according to the Texas Tribune.
In December 2012, the families of the 20 children and six adults slain in the Sandy Hook massacre gathered at the community's volunteer fire and rescue station house not far from the school. After hours had passed, it became apparent that the last people in the building were the parents or loved ones of those who had been killed, said Schweit, an expert on mass shootings and an MSU alumna.
She agreed that law enforcement has to be certain of the identities of the deceased to be sure they are delivering accurate information to families.
At the same time, the pattern of long waits after mass shootings is a challenge that needs to be addressed, she said.
"What Sandy Hook and Uvalde and now Michigan State shows us is that as coordinated as the victim services programs are, the urgency to do proper death notifications in these family assistance centers is still a challenge," Schweit said. "We need to get better."
She suggested families should get even a preliminary notification.
"If you do it well, it helps people on the road to coping," said Schweit, quoting a comment from Kathryn Turman, a former FBI assistant director at Victim Services Division, who Schweit included in her book, "Stop the Killing: How to End the Mass Shooting Crisis."
"If you do it badly, it's just another set of chains that people have to drag behind them — bad memories of how they were treated, or they didn't get what they needed."
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