After splash park shooting, Michigan community feels a familiar pain

On Saturday afternoon, a gunman opened fire at a splash pad — a play area for children with blue cylinders that spray water — in Rochester Hills. Police identified the shooter as Michael William Nash, 42, and said the handgun recovered at the scene was legally purchased in 2015 and registered to him.

Authorities said a motive was not yet known but that the attack appeared to be random. Nash was found dead with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound later Saturday in his home nearby, they said.

The wounded included an 8-year-old boy, a 4-year-old boy and their 39-year-old mother, authorities said. Others at the park that day were a city employee and 14 of his friends and family members. The city employee’s wife was shot, Mayor Bryan Barnett of Rochester Hills said Sunday. He added that two of the victims were in critical condition, while the others were stable.

As the community reeled, it was not lost on residents that this was the second shooting in the area in recent years: In 2021 at Oxford High School in the same county, a student fatally shot four of his classmates and injured seven others.

At a news conference Sunday, David Coulter, the Oakland County executive, lamented the fact that officials were already familiar with responding to this type of shootings. “We’re getting all too good at this, and I’m disgusted by it.”

Barnett said the city would review all procedures that were taken while responding to the shooting, but at this point, he said nothing jumped out as a failure.

Nash lived in Dequindre Estates, a small, quiet neighborhood of trailer homes less than 2 miles from the scene. He was believed to have lived with his mother, the Oakland County sheriff said, and was apparently undergoing mental health challenges but had no prior contact with police.