Four months after horrific shooting, LeeAnn Johnson, 17, sees God healing her community — and she wants her peers to know there's hope
OXFORD — At 12:50 p.m., Nov. 30, 2021, LeeAnn Johnson was walking to her biochemistry class at Oxford High School. It was a normal school day, except Johnson, who was always early for her classes, was running late.
The oldest of five children, Johnson is an impossibly responsible and mature 17-year-old. A senior captain of the Wildcats' varsity lacrosse team, she also runs cross-country, manages the school's wrestling team and serves in student leadership. She's active in her faith, regularly participating in the J-Walkers youth group at her parish, St. Joseph in Lake Orion, where group leader Kathy Galbraith says Johnson is the type of person one can always rely on — so much so, in fact, it's often easy to forget she's just a teenager.
Running late was out of character.
But as Johnson walked toward her class that day, something else wasn't right: students were running across the hall she was approaching.
It's just high school, Johnson figured at first. It was probably a senior prank, another group of kids running late, a fight, maybe. But then, she heard a bang. And then another. It soon became clear the sound wasn't someone being slammed against a locker.
Like most of her post-Columbine Generation Z peers, Johnson has participated in ALICE active-shooter and lockdowns drills at school since she was little, and suddenly she put together what the sound was and why the students were running.
“I ran into a random classroom, and the teacher had no idea what was going on. The kids had no idea what was going on, so I just started saying, ‘There is someone shooting; we need to go. Something is happening,’” Johnson told Detroit Catholic. “The teacher walked into the hallway, realized what was happening and closed the door. It was a classroom of all freshmen, so I didn't know any of them. There were lots of things that we heard because we were (adjacent) to the opening to the hallway where everything was happening.”
Had Johnson been on time that day, she would have been farther down the hallway where authorities say 15-year-old sophomore Ethan Crumbley opened fire on his Oxford High School classmates, killing four and injuring seven.
“It definitely makes me wonder,” Johnson said. “I think we're all put in a position of maybe where we needed to be in that moment. And I'm very grateful that I was running late because I might not have been in the same situation as I had been.”
Johnson sat on the floor surrounded by first-year students. They sat in dead silence, fearful that the shooter would hear them. Johnson crouched between two girls, who laid their heads on her shoulders. A young freshman boy sat behind her, rocking back and forth, repeating, “I don’t want to die.” Johnson reached out and held his hand.
“I could just tell like how terrified these kids were, so I kind of felt almost like a mom. I was trying so hard to hold it all together,” Johnson said.
Once she sat down, Johnson immediately started praying.
“The gunshots kept getting closer and closer to our classroom — and you could hear everything from where we were," Johnson said. "We were smack dab in the middle, which meant no matter which direction (the shooter) went, we could hear it all. As they got closer and closer, I was saying multiple different prayers, and just hoping and praying that nothing would happen because we were stuck in this classroom with no windows, no secondary escape."
'Jesus, Jesus, Jesus'
Johnson was born and raised in the Oxford community, one which, though undeniably impacted forever by the tragedy of Nov. 30, she describes as the “most amazing community that you could ever be a part of.”
Johnson's parents are high school sweethearts who also grew up in Oxford, a part-suburban, part-rural community in northern Oakland County, just down the street from each other. Johnson and her siblings — all of whose names start with the letter "L" — were raised at St. Joseph Parish in next-door Lake Orion, where Johnson received the sacraments of baptism, confession, first Communion and confirmation.
When she was a little girl, her family regularly went canoeing down the Pine River in northern Michigan. Whenever the water became scary or choppy, Johnson recalls, she would pray, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” over and over again. Sitting in an unfamiliar classroom with no windows, able to hear the terror unfolding in the hallway outside, Johnson found herself returning to the prayer.
As she huddled with other teens, she rubbed a holy medal of St. Michael the Archangel between her fingers, a gift from her boyfriend to carry in her backpack so that she would “feel safe and have protection.”
The students sat in the barricaded classroom throughout the ordeal — it could have been five minutes to an hour, Johnson said; time felt unreal — until they were escorted out of the school through the same hallway where the shooting took place. Along with Oxford's other 1,800 students, they walked 21 minutes in the November cold down the road to a local Meijer store. Johnson had been texting her parents and her brother, a freshman. They planned to meet up in the parking lot.
“We're all just walking through the snow with ambulances and police cars racing down the road next to us,” Johnson said. “The first people I saw when I got to Meijer were my mom, dad, good friend, and their parents. That was such a big moment of relief when I got to see them, and I wasn't searching forever for them. But then it was a waiting game for my brother to come down the hill, which was a lot.”
When Johnson arrived at the Meijer parking lot, she ran into Oxford's wrestling coach. Johnson’s younger brother Luke, the freshman, was on the wrestling team and was close with 16-year-old Tate Myre.
"The very first thing (the coach) said to me was, 'Do you know where Tate is?' And I said, 'No.' And then we found out on the car ride home that he was no longer with us," Johnson said.
Myre was one of the four students killed in the attack.
LeeAnn's prayer: Help me help others
That evening, Johnson sat at home. She watched TV, but grew angry at news reports she felt misreported facts. She stayed up until 3 a.m. Her brothers Luke and Landon, who looked up to Tate, sat alone in dead silence. Johnson remembers her family prayed a rosary. She didn't leave her house for at least a day.
Eventually, she began to venture out. Johnson attended youth group with fellow Oxford kids, and she was part of a group of students who stood and prayed outside the hospital when shooting victim Justin Schilling's organs were transplanted for donation.
Johnson said it's her faith that has gotten her through. She says she isn't angry, but she has been asking God to help her help others, as this was not the first trauma with which Johnson has had to reckon.
"When I was younger, I was sexually assaulted for 10 years by my grandfather, and I had to go through court in sixth grade. I went through this from middle school until freshman year, and it was this whole big phase of, 'What are you doing, God? Why are you letting this happen? Why why are you letting me feel alone?'" Johnson said. "And so, once (the shooting) happened, I felt like I already had gone through that big phase of anger toward God. In this instance, I was like, 'I need you to help me understand this. I need you to help me get through this. How do I help other people realize what I realized years ago?' So, it wasn't ever anger, but it was more, 'Help me help others.'"
Faith isn't always strong, Johnson said, and everyone goes through times of doubt. But experiencing what she went through when she was younger led her to the moment when she decided to fully believe in God and commit to a deep faith, Johnson explained.
"I was crying in my bathroom in fifth grade at our elementary school, and I remember being completely alone and saying, 'I don't know what to do. If you're even real, show me a sign.' And instantly, I saw what I believe is an angel," Johnson said. "I saw a big, bright light in the corner of the bathroom. And it looked like a figure with a big bright light, and then it just went away. And ever since then, I'm like, 'OK, obviously, there's something there.'"
A few years after the court date, Johnson was preparing for her confirmation. She had no clue who she wanted as her patron saint, but then, she was introduced to the story of a young Italian girl, St. Maria Goretti.
St. Maria Goretti is the youngest canonized saint in the Catholic Church. At age 11, she was raped and murdered by her neighbor. As she was attacked, she stood firm in her faith and forgave him on her deathbed.
"I resonated with her so much, and I felt so much for her and understood her. Her whole forgiveness thing was exactly what I was going through," Johnson said.
She told her mother that night about St. Maria Goretti — and in a "God moment," as Johnson describes it, her mother said someone had reached out just days before, offering the Johnson family a first-class St. Maria Goretti relic.
"There were just so many little moments where I'm like, 'OK, God, you're real. I know you have a plan for me. I know you want me,'" Johnson said. "We all go through so many bad things, but it's just like a stepping stool to deepen our faith, and it's a stepping stool to help others grow closer in faith."
Prayer returns to public school
In the days following the shooting, Oxford High School's classes were canceled. A hybrid class schedule resumed on Jan. 11, but in-person classes didn't restart until Jan. 24.
Before classes began, the school held an open house to invite students to become reacquainted with the building that had been extensively renovated in the wake of the tragedy.
"On the second day that I went to the open house, I went into the classroom, and I sat down where I was (during the shooting) just to get it out if I needed and bring that closure," Johnson said. She wanted reassurance that she could be safe even in a triggering spot.
Returning to school was difficult, Johnson said. She has the same schedule as the previous semester and has to walk the same route. At first, she avoided the hallway where the shooting happened and even avoided going into the hallway between classes.
"I went back to the classroom that I had been in, and I met with the teacher and that same set of kids again," Johnson said.
On Sunday, March 13, St. Joseph Parish hosted an event with Sr. Mary Gianna Thornby, a member of the Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, as a teenager, survived the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado. Sr. Mary Gianna spoke about her experience to the Oxford community, and Johnson briefly spoke at the event as well.
Sr. Mary Gianna said it this was her first time talking to another community that had experienced a tragedy similar to Columbine.
Sr. Mary Gianna grew up without faith. During her first two years of high school at Columbine, she spent every lunch period in the library. On April 20, 1999, she had an overwhelming urge to leave school at lunch. As she drove away, she saw students running out of the school in her rearview mirror. That was the day two of her peers opened fire on the school, murdering 12 students and one teacher, injuring 21 and eventually taking their own lives.
Sr. Mary Gianna later found out most of the shooting had taken place in the library — 10 students were killed there, and the two perpetrators took their lives in the library. Like Johnson, had Sr. Mary Gianna stuck to her routine, she would have been in the library where the shooting occurred. While it wasn't immediate, the Columbine shooting served as the catalyst for Sr. Mary Gianna to later find her faith.
The Monday following Sr. Mary Gianna's talk, Oxford's new superintendent invited her to visit the school. Johnson, her friends and her brother gave Sr. Mary Gianna a school tour.
"It's the funniest thing seeing a nun in a public high school cafeteria," Johnson said. "We had kids coming up and saying, 'Hi, I saw your talk.'"
Prayer at the school has become normalized since the shooting, Johnson said. All around Oxford High are QR codes with prompts asking whether students need prayer. For Johnson's part, she's felt compelled to use her story — including the trauma she experienced as a young girl — to help other Oxford students process their grief.
On Feb. 7, she posted on Instagram:
"Looking back, I would never wish this upon anyone, but I wouldn't change what I went through. One experience opened me up to a lifetime of faith. There is so much more to say & you can contact me if you want to hear more, but all I can say is: we have a mighty God above us. God picked me up out of the trenches and helped me get to where I am today. He will do the same for you in a heartbeat. I know you are hurting right now. But it will get better, & even when you feel alone, even in your times of doubt, God is holding you in his hand. This darkness was not an act through him but through evil itself. He is going to help you through this. he is weeping with you. & he is calling out your name. all you have to do is let him in. God bless, I love you all."
After sharing this, Johnson said fellow students, some of whom were strangers, reached out to her, wanting to know more about her faith. She invited them to church.
"I had so many people reaching out to me. I had a friend who I was like, 'Do you want to just pray?' If we are having a really hard day, we have anxiety rooms at school, and we would go down there and pray together," Johnson said. "There have been so many moments where it's become so normal, which is such a good thing. It's become so normal to say, 'Do you want to pray? Do you want to talk about it? Do you want to do a rosary?' Which is such a good thing."
When trauma leads to faith
God has a way of bringing good even from the darkest moments, Johnson said. And Oxford is seeing that firsthand.
"I think the church became so much fuller than it ever was before," Johnson said. "Even at school, people talk about faith all the time. I've had more faith conversations within this year than I have my entire years of high school."
At St. Joseph, four candles were lit in memory of the four students who died, Johnson said, and it remains an open discussion in youth group. Johnson plans to attend Madonna University in the fall for biochemistry, followed by medical school. While she's leaving Oxford High, she feels called to use her experience to lead others to Jesus.
"I think the call for myself is to help others and have my story be a gateway for others that leads to Christ," Johnson said. "I can't get through it without his help. I want people to know that. I think there is so much misinformation about the Catholic faith and the Christian faith in general, and I want people to know that it is not just some bogus idea, and it's not just for some old couple attending church on Sundays. I am 17 years old. I am Gen Z, and I have the 'grandma's faith.' It is not bogus; it is a real thing, and there are young people who are willing to fight for it, and I want other people to be able to see that."
Johnson has been committed to inviting her peers to youth group, and she'll continue to do so. She wants others to know there's an outlet for their pain. God will help them, she promises, just like He's helped her.
"It is almost as if God is knocking on your door, saying, 'Hey, I can help you through this, but you are the one who has to open it up or crack the window,'" Johnson said. "I think that as horrible as an event like this is, you can allow it to become a gateway to your faith if you ask for help and if you go to prayer.
"We all learn a lesson from the people around us, positive or negative," Johnson added. "I think we can all learn a lesson from this event. Even though it was a horrific thing that happened, we can find faith in the smallest nooks and crannies of our lives. I think that is an important lesson for everyone to learn, that no matter how dark it is in the tunnel, there is always light."
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