Associated Press
A 15-year-old freshman opened fire at his high school today, killing two youths and wounding 13 other people, authorities said. One witness said the youth smiled as he fired.
One person was dead at the scene and 14 others were injured, Santee Fire Department spokesman Jeff Fehlberg said. Later, a second victim died at Grossmont Hospital. It was the largest number of dead and wounded in a school shooting since the Columbine tragedy nearly two years ago.
Both of the dead were juveniles, and at least two of those shot were campus supervisors at Santana High School, Sheriff William Kolender said.
Chris Reynolds, the father of one of the suspect’s friends, told KGTV he heard over the weekend that the teen-ager had a gun.
“I do regret that I didn’t do something because I should’ve stepped up even if it wasn’t true and stuff to take that precaution,” Reynolds said. “If someone did die over there and stuff, that’s going to be haunting me for a long time, that’s going to be with me for a long time. It just hurts because I could’ve maybe done something about it.”
Student John Schardt said he was in a nearby classroom when the shooting started at about 9:20 a.m. in a nearby boys room. “I looked at the kid, and he was smiling and shooting his weapon,” Schardt, 17, told KGTV.
“It was total chaos. People were trying to take cover,” Schardt said.
One deputy was teaching a class at the time of the shooting and was at the site within moments, Kolender said.
Students were escorted to a nearby shopping center. Television images showed a parking lot full of students and parents milling anxiously while paramedics took away the injured. Classes were canceled for Tuesday and counselors would be available, officials said.
Another student, Alicia Zimmer, told the station she froze with fright until her boyfriend pushed her out of the way. “I dropped my stuff; it’s still there right in the middle of the hall. It was really scary,” she said.
Zimmer said she didn’t see the shooter but she did see one girl with blood on her arm and a boy lying face down on the floor.
Andrew Kaforey, a 17-year-old Santana senior, said he ran into the bathroom with a security guard after hearing what sounded like a firecracker or a gunshot.
“He pointed the gun right at me but he didn’t shoot,” Kaforey said. As he and the guard ran out, the suspect shot the guard in the back, Kaforey said.
Kaforey’s 14-year-old brother, Jacob, said a boy they believe was the shooter had talked earlier about how he owned a gun, although other students hadn’t seen the weapon. The boy also had talked about stealing a car and going to Mexico, Jacob said.
Reynolds said the boy had been talking last week about shooting people, but assured listeners he wasn’t serious.
“Everybody can’t believe that he actually did it,” Reynolds told KGTV. “He said he was just joking.”
He described the shooter as the type of boy who was picked on at school, and said one of the boy’s friends even checked the shooter’s knapsack Monday morning to make sure it did not contain a weapon.
In Washington, President Bush called the shooting a “disgraceful act of cowardice” and said the best prevention is to teach children right from wrong.
Santee, a town of 59,000 residents, is about 10 miles northeast of San Diego. Santana High, which opened in 1965, has more that 1,900 students in grades nine through 12.
On April 20, 1999, two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 before killing themselves. It was the worst of a string of mass shootings at schools that shocked the nation.
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