MACKINAW CITY — There are lots of questions still unanswered from concerned parents after an unsecured gun was apparently left out by a staff member at a school event.
It happened last Wednesday at a Mackinaw City Public Schools volleyball game.
“A vehicle had a firearm sitting on top of it,” said the parent who found the gun. They asked to remain anonymous. “Nobody was around. I called 911 and they sent a police officer out to secure the weapon. I later learned that it was an employee of the school.”
He said it’s concerning because there were a lot of people around the parking lot, including kids.
“There were kids riding bikes that were showing up to the school and other people arriving,” he said. “There’s always a potential for somebody else to grab it. You don’t know what anybody else’s intentions are.”
The school district’s superintendent and board members declined requests for an interview but did release a statement.
It said athletic director Elijah May inadvertently left his pistol on top of his car after checking his deer blind earlier in the day, and that May was licensed for the weapon and was given a warning to exercise greater caution in the future. You can read the full statement below.
For parents like man one who found the gun, that’s not much of an answer. He worries that letting May off the hook sets a dangerous precedent for police, the county prosecutor and the school district if something like this happens again.
“We just want accountability. If I were to leave my firearm unattended someplace, I would expect there’d be some sort of repercussion,” he said.
That parent says he doesn’t want May fired but said he thinks teachers should be held to the same standard as students. With the school’s no tolerance policy, a student who brought a weapon to school – even accidentally – would be suspended or expelled.
“If you’re a gun owner, you need to be responsible. Our students’ safety is paramount, [and] it’s not just our students but everybody that goes to an event,” the parent said.
Parents are also concerned with the lack of transparency. The school sent out a letter to parents Tuesday, nearly a week after the incident. “It was slow, transparency-wise, and I feel that the information should have come out quicker to the parents,” he said.
In addition to the school district, we also reached out to Mackinaw City Police and the Emmett County prosecutor’s office but didn’t get a response.
