UPDATED: What we know about the mass shooting at Rochester Hills splash pad
Rochester Hills Mayor Brian Barnett at a press conference on the Rochester Hills shooting, June 15, 2024 | Anna Liz Nichols
A sunny summer day at the Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad in Rochester Hills turned into a tragic one after a gunman opened fired on children and parents, leaving nine wounded with the discarded weapon laying inches from abandoned race car and rainbow-colored children’s sandals.
Authorities on the scene Saturday lamented the seemingly random act of violence which led to ice cream cones being strewn alongside bullet casings. It’s a hard hit for the county, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said Saturday, as the area is still trying to heal after the Oxford High School shooting in 2021 that killed four students.
Police on Sunday identified the gunman as Michael William Nash, 42, of nearby Shelby Township. He had no known run-ins with the law that police are aware of and no known connection to the splash pad or the victims, Bouchard said during a Saturday news conference hours after the shooting.
Bouchard gave an update on the statuses of the victims Monday.
The victims
The Oakland County Sheriff’s office isn’t identifying the nine victims or many details about their statuses at this time, but shared their ages: 4, 8, 30, 31, 37 39, 39, 40 and 77.
The 4- and 8-year-olds are brothers, Bouchard said Saturday, and their mother, age 39, was wounded, as well. As of Monday, the 4-year-old boy, who had suffered a wound to the thigh, is in stable condition. His 8-year-old brother, who was wounded in the head, and his mom, who was wounded in the abdomen and leg, both remain in critical condition.
The boys’ aunt, Tiffany Holcomb has made a GoFundMe to support the boys’ dad as he takes care of his family.
“Right now their father is trying to navigate through life and being by their sides. The community has been amazing, along with the nurses and doctors who are caring for them,” Holcomb says on the GoFundMe page.
The 37-year-old woman and 77-year-old man who were wounded have been released from the hospital.
A different 39-year-old woman who sustained wounds to the forearm and back could potentially be released from the hospital Monday, Bouchard said. Other victims, besides the mother and son, remain stable and in the hospital.
“No one’s worse,” Bouchard said, praising the youngest victim’s progress in particular. “The young child that had the head wound, he’s made amazing progress. I saw him yesterday and the father. “‘Reeling’ would be an understatement. That family went through things no family should ever have to face. You’ve got a family of four, and three are in the hospital.”
Because “bottom feeders” are already creating fake fundraisers for fake victims for their own personal gain, the Oakland County Sheriff’s office shared a legitimate fundraiser for two other victims, husband and wife Micayla and Eric Coughlin of Rochester Hills.
“We investigated that, our investigators made contact with GoFundMe, that site was shut down, the money had never been dispersed to the scammer and was returned to the donors,” Bouchard said.
Their GoFundMe page, set up by a friend, says the pair had gotten ice cream with their daughters, ages 2 and 7 months. The family walked to the splash pad where seconds after arriving, they heard gunfire.
They each took one of their daughters and shielded them from the bullets, sustaining seven gunshot wounds between the two of them, the page says.
“They are hospitalized and undergoing necessary treatment. Because of their heroic actions, their children were protected and able to go home that evening,” the page says.
A bystander who told the Advance and other reporters on the scene that he rendered first aid to the victims before the paramedics arrived said one victim, the grandfather of a friend, was shot several times in the stomach as the gunman tried to “shoot through him to get to everybody else.”
Jarrett Schmidt, 43, said he had been at his mother’s house near the splash pad when he realized what was happening and grabbed the medical kit he owns because he carries a concealed weapon.
“Some of these people I know personally,” Schmidt said. “I’ve lived here all my life. … I put compression bandages and tourniquets on people; that’s what I was here to do.”
The Brooklands neighborhood where the splash pad is located is the oldest neighborhood in Rochester Hills and is a very close-knit community, Rochester Hills Mayor Bryan K. Barnett said Saturday. The shooting impacts the whole city, he added.
Barnett said one of the victims is the wife of a city employee. He’s been communicating with her family and is focused on supporting the city.
“When I got on scene, I started to cry because I know what a splash pad is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be a place where people gather, where families make memories, where people have fun and enjoy a Saturday afternoon. And it wasn’t today,” Barnett said. “We’re going to do everything we can to help them be able to provide the resources and begin to get our community back on its feet.”
The shooter
The violence of Saturday is a “bizarre situation,” Bouchard said Saturday, as the man police have identified as the gunman, Michael William Nash, seems to have no connection to the victims or the splash pad.
As of Monday, Bouchard said police still don’t know Nash’s motive, and they might never know the motive.
At around 5 p.m. Saturday, police said Nash drove up to the splash pad, exited his car and proceeded to open fire into the crowded splash pad, causing chaos as families attempted to flee.
Originally law enforcement found 28 bullet casings, but as of Monday, police report that Nash fired 36 shots into the crowd.
Then he just left, Bouchard said Saturday, “appeared to leave in no rush, just calmly walked back to his car.”
Nash then went to his mother’s home half-mile from the splash pad in Shelby Township. Law enforcement surrounded the home after establishing that he was inside, Bouchard said Saturday.
Law enforcement deployed drones into the home and discovered that Nash was dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Quick police response and containment of the gunman was critical, Bouchard said Saturday, as near Nash’s body, there was an AR Platform rifle laying on the kitchen table.
“We don’t know what the next chapter was gonna be,” Bouchard said. “I believe that because we had quick containment of him that if he had planned to do anything else — and it wouldn’t surprise me because having that [the AR rifle] on the kitchen table isn’t an everyday activity — that there was probably something else, a second chapter potentially.”
In total, one handgun was found on the scene, and police believe he had a second handgun with him, which was found at the house, as well as the AR rifle and at least 10 other firearms that law enforcement is determining ownership.
When I got on scene, I started to cry because I know what a splash pad is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be a place where people gather, where families make memories, where people have fun and enjoy a Saturday afternoon. And it wasn’t today.
– Rochester Hills Mayor Bryan K. Barnett
Why the gunman open fired on the splash pad is unknown to law enforcement as of Saturday, Bouchard said. There was evidence police found that suggests that Nash was going through mental distress, and investigators are looking for a potential manifesto or social media postings to get to the bottom of why the shooting happened.
“There appears to be no connection between the victims and the location whatsoever. A person doesn’t live in Rochester Hills, he went to a Rochester Hills Park, so it may be very much like Michigan State University where the person had no connection to Michigan State but just decided to go there and find victims,” Bouchard said Saturday, referring to the mass shooting at the East Lansing university in February 2023 that killed three students.
Mental health support is strained in Oakland County, Bouchard said. Nash’s mother informed law enforcement after the shooting that Nash had been suffering with paranoia that the government was watching him.
Someone is typically in a position before incidents of mass casualties to identify signs of mental distress and share with public safety or mental health professionals and they don’t, Bouchard said.
“There’s a mental health crisis going on. … I’ve been asked by a number of people at the federal and state levels, what they can do, what they can do is send resources, not just to the sheriff’s office, but to the community for mental health,” Bouchard said. “I’ve been asking for more mental health resources for the community. We’re responding to mental health calls almost daily.”
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