After living through two school shootings — at Michigan State University on Monday and at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, Michigan, in 2021 — Emma Riddle said it’s starting to feel normal. And that’s not acceptable.
The 18-year-old college freshman was showering late Monday inside MSU’s Hubbard Hall when another undergrad knocked on the door of her bathroom to alert her to a gunman reported on the East Lansing campus.
“I was like, ‘Girl, getaway, I’m washing my hair,’” Riddle told The Post Tuesday. “She was like, ‘No Emma, it’s an active shooter on campus.’”
Riddle, who survived the mass shooting at her high school — which left four classmates dead — just 14 months earlier, quickly got out and started receiving all-too-familiar instructions.
“By then, we had gotten a text from our RA saying we needed to barricade the doors, lock them, turn off the lights, and get away from the windows,” she said.
The history major used a dresser to barricade a door before hiding beneath a desk, where she started to text and call loved ones to tell them that the unthinkable was happening — again.
“14 months ago I had to evacuate from Oxford High School when a fifteen-year-old opened fire and killed four of my classmates and injured seven more,” she tweeted amid the chaos. “Tonight, I am sitting under my desk at Michigan State University, once again texting everyone ‘I love you.’ When will this end?”
In a twisted sense, the shooting at Oxford — carried out by sophomore Ethan Crumbley, who pleaded guilty to murder and terrorism charges in October — had prepped Riddle for the worst, she said.
“It was easier to go through the motions of barricading and locking the doors and everything because it had happened beforehand,” Riddle said. “And it was easier to process. At Oxford, when everything happened, I kind of froze and I didn’t know what to do. This time I was able to do everything I needed to be safe.”
But the two-time school shooting survivor said it’s clear that any expectation of public safety at US schools is foolhardy.
“I have done active shooter drills since I was a child,” she said. “My generation grew up with this and it’s not stopping — it’s getting worse.”
Riddle is calling on the government for “common sense” gun reform laws, including the passage of universal background checks and safe storage laws.
“When we’re in school, we’re told we’re safe and that this is a safe place,” Riddle said. “And then to have it violated multiple times, it’s definitely disheartening.”
Classes at Michigan State, where other freshmen like Riddle also survived Crumbley’s attack, are set to resume on Monday. The shaken undergrad urged lawmakers to immediately address the epidemic of mass shootings nationwide, insisting that anything short of stiffer gun laws is a “mockery” to survivors’ trauma and countless victims.
“No child should feel unsafe at school,” Riddle told The Post. “It is completely in [lawmakers’] power to change things and idly standing by is disgraceful. You’re not only betraying the people of the United States, but the children of the United States … Do better.”
Anthony McRae, the 43-year-old gunman in Monday’s massacre, which has left three students dead and another five critically hurt, would have been previously barred from owning a gun had prosecutors not dropped felony weapons charges he faced in 2019.
McRae, who had no known affiliation to MSU, fatally shot himself as police confronted him miles off campus later Monday. His motive remains unclear, authorities said.
Riddle’s father, meanwhile, said he’s once again confronted with a harsh reality that no parent or guardian wants to face.
Follow The Post’s coverage of the tragic shooting at Michigan State University
- MSU student who survived second school shooting wonders ‘when will it end’
- Michigan State University shooter no stranger to cops, motive remains unknown
- MSU student who lost pals in Oxford school shooting relives horror
“You think it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, you know, something that can never possibly happen again,” Matt Riddle, 45, told The Post. “And then it does. And it’s hard to come to terms with the fact that you can’t protect your children from everything. You can’t keep them safe even though you want to.”
Like his daughter, Matt said the time for thoughts and prayers is long gone. His initial focus was Emma’s safety, as well as that of her fellow college students, but it’s now turned to something else.
“As it’s gone further on, it turns into anger,” Matt Riddle told The Post. “It’s hard to understand why nothing can happen and why we can’t negotiate in good faith and figure something out.”
But even increased background checks, millions more dollars for mental health services, and state incentives to pass red flag laws — as the Biden administration signed into law in June — might not be enough to solve America’s gun problem, Matt said.
“Maybe that’s not far enough,” he told The Post of the bipartisan gun control legislation. “Maybe we’re at a point now where, if we can’t come to the middle, then just go all the way. Take them all then if we can’t find a happy medium.”
