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So we are driving what I think is bit west of Oxford Middle School right by like Orion

and it is a snow covered street folks are decorated for Christmas and you still see a lot of flag poles have staff from what I assume was the order by the governor last week to lower the flags.

And this is Kim Belware. She's a national reporter for the post and she is in Oxford, Michigan.

She's in the small township at 40 minutes north of Detroit and it's Christmas time. There are hand painted signs on the cute downtown storefronts.

There are lights everywhere decorations and there are also lots of signs in almost every window that say pray for Oxford, Oxford strong.

So it's very clear that even if you haven't been following the news since late November something happened in this community.

As you may know what happened in this community was a school shooting.

Four students were killed, seven people were injured and a 15 year old student was taken into custody.

This ended up being the deadliest school shooting that the US has seen in more than three years.

So what was really unusual about this tragedy is that the parents of the shooting suspect were charged to.

They were charged with involuntary manslaughter and that's because investigators found they purchased the gun for their son as a gift.

They took him to a gun range. All of these are legal in Michigan, but further investigation revealed that they were aware of warning signs and their son and seemed to ignore those warnings.

So this is a situation that is so complicated for a community that is very tight-knit and that's why I wanted to hear from Kim.

She has been in Oxford talking to parents and community leaders and business owners trying to figure out how this town is dealing with the fallout from this unimaginable tragedy and what happens next.

From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Martine Powers. It's Friday, December 10th.

Today, what it's like in the days after a school shooting and later in the show, a remembrance for our colleague, Fred Hyatt.

The first township is the small, close-knit community. It's a little less than 23,000 people. Overwhelmingly, white community.

Kind of a mix of blue collar and I would say upper middle class workers. Politically, it transitioned in 2016. It was kind of one of those pale blue spots on the map.

2020, it's a little more pale red. So definitely one of those swing-year districts in Eastern Michigan. But it has this really, really strong small town identity. People say that they are proud to be a small town.

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