A video of students locked in a classroom during the shooting at Oxford High School on Tuesday has gone viral, as it appears to show the shooter attempting to trick them into opening the door.
Journalist Philip Lewis posted the footage to his Twitter account, with the video originating on TikTok.
He captioned it: "A student from inside Oxford High School captured this footage of the possible shooter trying to get into the classroom by impersonating a sheriff.
"The students did not open the door and escaped through a window."
The initial TikTok was posted by Shwifty766 and has been liked over 12,000 times with over 1500 comments.
In the video, students can be seen crouching down in a classroom, presumably after the school went into lockdown.
Their teacher can be heard speaking to someone outside of the locked classroom.
@shwifty766 All prayers out for Oxford high school and to all my classmates #prayers #prayersneeded #oxfordhighschool #fyp #fypシ #capcut
♬ original sound - ItsShwifty
The person outside is heard saying: "Sheriff's sffice, it is safe to come out."
The teacher replies by saying he and the students are not prepared to do that at this time. He is asked to repeat this as the person behind the door says they can't hear them.
The person behind the door can be heard saying: "Okay, well come to the door and look at my badge, bro."
The students then react to the person using the word "bro" and indicate that it is a "red flag" and that the person may be lying.
They then proceed to escape the classroom through a window into a snow-filled courtyard. Going through a door at the end of the courtyard, students were met by armed police.
According to the Oakland County Sheriff's Office report, three people were killed in the shooting and eight others were injured.
Police took a 15-year old suspect, a sophomore at the school, into custody without incident. No motive for the shooting has been identified at the time and the police continue with their investigation.
People who were inside the school have detailed how they reacted when the loudspeaker in the school announced a lockdown.
The person believed to have recorded the incident in the classroom was freshman Mark Kluska. He told CNN: "I started realizing it was real when I began to hear yelling."
He also praised the actions of his teacher, Moises Cortez, who was in the room during the video and spoke to the alleged shooter behind the door.
He said: "He shut the door and put like a metal doorstopper so no one would be able to kick in the door."
Senior Aiden Page said he and his classmates grabbed anything they could in case they had to fight the shooter.
He said: "We grabbed calculators, we grabbed scissors just in case the shooter got in and we had to attack them."
He also added that a bullet had pierced one of the desks they had used to block the door.
It is believed that the gun used in the shooting was a 9mm Sig Sauer SP2022 semiautomatic pistol and purchased by the suspect's father on Friday, four days before the shooting.
Newsweek has contacted the school for comment.
