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Show 4 t THE SUN THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 2001 News High School Freshman Kills Two Students, Injures 13 In California By Tribune Media Services In the worst act of school SANTEE, Calif. violence since the Columbine massacre, a high school freshman allegedly shot two fellow students to death and wounded 13 other people on Monday, smiling as he fired the gun. The boy, who had spoken over the weekend about going on such a shooting spree but was not taken seriously, was arrested at the school and questioned late Monday. Officials said he would be charged as an adult with murder. officials said they might i ever know the motive for the shooting, but the suspect is a slight boy who was frequently teased about his size and recently had two skateboards stolen from him, students said. His name was not released. Most of the victims in the shootings at Santana High School were between the ages of 14 and 18, officials said. Two of the injured were adults: Tim Estes, a student teacher, and Peter Ruiz, a school security guard. The dead were identified as Bryan Zuckor, 14, and Randy Gordon, 15. Chris Reynolds, 29, the boyfriend of the mother of a Santana student who is a friend of the suspect, said the boy spent Saturday night at his home, and talked about taking a gun to school and shooting people. But Reynolds said the boy said he was only joking. On Monday morning, as Reynolds stood d among a throng of parents, weeping red-eye- teenagers and grim police officers in a strip mall across the street from the school, he said he regretted not having told someone about the boy's remarks. "I'm upset with myself for not doing anything," Reynolds said. "I made a bad choice." A friend of the boy was so concerned about the boy's remarks that the friend had "patted him down" as they left for school Monday morning, Reynolds said. But the gun apparently was in the boy's backpack, and so his friend had not detected it, Reynolds added. Students who witnessed the shooting said the boy stepped out of a bathroom and began firing as the bell rang before second period. "I looked at the kid and he was smiling and shooting his weapon," said John Schardt, 17. Jordan Freymiller, an senior, said he was standing nearby when the shooting began. "I thought it was just a pellet gun at first because it was kind of quiet," Freymiller said. Then he saw a boy on the floor, his face bleeding. "Everyone was stopping to see if the kid was all right," he said, but when the sound of shooting continued, a friend said, "Let's go." Freymiller said he ran, following a trail of blood drops coming from another student who had been shot in the leg. "All you could hear were the caps going off," he said. Matt Martin, a senior, said, "I heard bullets whizzing past my head. I saw everybody running, and it was nuts." The school, with a spread-ou- t, open-ai- r campus, does not have metal detectors, but Martin said security was tight at the school. For instance, he said, students have not had lockers in many years, largely to prevent them from having a convenient place to store drugs or weapons. Lt. Jerry Lewis, chief of the San Diego Police Department's homicide division, said the boy used a eight- - or nine-shhandgun. When police arrived, "the suspect gave up without any argument, without any fight," Lewis said. The first police to respond were two officers already on the open-ai- r campus. One was teaching a class and the oth,er was registering his child for classes and also was involved in the suspect's arrest. After the boy was taken into custody, official went into the one bathroom where the suspect had been and found two students in rear stalls. Both had been shot. One was able to talk and seemed to be only slightly injured, but the other was "not responsive," according to San Diego Police Officer Robert Clark, who was at the school registering his daughter when the shooting took place. The shootings represented the worst violence in a U.S. school since April 20, 1999, when two Columbine High School students in Littleton, Colo., shot to death 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 others before killing themselves. Karen Degischer, principal of Santana and its nearly 2,000 students in grades 9 through 12, said she was attending a meeting at the school district's office when the shooting occurred. An assistant principal placed the 911 call, she said. "As principal of Santana High School, this is my worst nightmare," she said. She said the school staff had drilled for a possible shooting incident and that teachers and others had followed the guidelines, including having teachers herd students into classrooms. San Diego County District Attorney Paul Pfingst said the teen would be charged as an adult under the provisions of Proposition 21, a California ballot initiative that passed a year ago. The initiative gave the state's prosecutors, rather than judges, the power to decide whether juveniles charged in many types of crimes should be tried as adults. He said he had spoken with the mother of one of the dead boys, though he did not say which one. "She wanted to know why, and we could not provide an answer," Pfingst said. Though the suspect had made statements, nothing revealed a possible motive, Pfingst said. "There is no real answer," he added. Pfingst said the boy would be arraigned Wednesday and charged with murder, assault with a deadly weapon and various d charges. S AN TANA CALIF.- -- Brian Kays prays in front of Santana High School, in Santee, California, the scene of a shootDiego. ing rampage earlier in the day. "This type of thing shouldn't happen," said Kays, a student at "It's sad to see a youth lose a life and it's sad to see a youth do this." A ninth-grad- e student opened fire at SANTEE, the suburban San Diego high school Monday, March 5, 2001, killing two people and wounding at least IS. The shooting was the worst at U.S. High School since the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colo., on April 20,1999. photo by Tribune Media Services Advising Comer Sponsored by Student Support Services I 1 i J tt Dixie' State College 1 Top Reasons to Visit Your Career Center 1 . 2. 3. 4. 5. fc Because youre beginning to realize that four years of majoring in General Ed may not be the fast track to fame and riches. So youll have something to tell your parents when they ask you (again) what you intend to do with your life. So you can feel superior to all of your undecided friends. Because where else can you get unlimited, professional and FREE career counseling? 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