A Michigan sheriff has revealed that the 15-year-old gunman who he said carried out a deadly rampage at Oxford High School never knocked on the door of a barricaded classroom while pretending to be a sheriff's deputy, as a widely-circulated cellphone video would suggest.
Ethan Crumbley was arrested within minutes of deputies' arrival at the school on Tuesday. Prosecutors announced on Wednesday that they have charged the 15-year-old as an adult with 24 criminal counts, including four charges of murder and terrorism.
The school shooting in suburban Detroit - the deadliest in the US since 2018 - claimed the lives of four students and left seven others wounded, one of them critically.
Three of the students who were killed were identified as 16-year-old Tate Myre, 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana, and 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin.
A fourth student, 17-year-old Justin Shilling, succumbed to his jaw and head wounds on Wednesday.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard sought to clear up some 'false information,' which he said social media have been 'ginning up', including allegations that the his office had been warned about the coming shooting.
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said on Wednesday that Oxford High School shooting suspect Ethan Crumbley, 15, never knocked on a classroom door during Tuesday's deadly rampage
Video shot inside a classroom showed someone knocking at the door, claiming to be a sheriff's official. Sheriff Bouchard said it was most likely a plainclothes detective. Freshman Mark Kluska recorded the incident inside his sign language class
Kluska and his classmates escaped through a first-story window and ran across the yard to safety (pictured)
Ethan Crumbley, 15, is being charged as an adult with two dozen counts, including murder and terror
Bouchard paid special attention to a recording that was taken by Oxford freshman Mark Kluska, which showed students huddling inside a classroom when someone knocked on the door.
'A video was disseminated rather widely that showed the students in the classroom and depicted someone knocking on the door, and pretty much the allegation was that was the suspect,' Bouchard told reporters.
Kluska told CNN he was in his sign language class when an active shooter lockdown was announced, prompting his teacher, Moises Cortez, to shut the classroom door and secure it with a metal doorstop so no one could kick it in from the outside.
'I started realizing it was real when I began to hear yelling,' Kluska told the network.
The freshman said his teacher switched off the lights and told his students to huddle in
