Yesterday's suicide of Jason Hoffman created a tangle of emotions at the school where he shot and injured two teachers and three students.
For Dan Barnes, the Granite Hills dean of students, now assistant principal, who was Hoffman's apparent target, the suicide erased concerns that his family might be in danger if Hoffman ever left prison.
But Barnes said he was also sad.
"I don't know that I thought I would feel that way, but I do," Barnes said.
And he said he saw similar mixed emotions after the school told the teen-age shooting victims what had happened to the student who shot them in March.
"Nobody came in and said, 'This is great,' " he said. "Nobody said, 'This is horrible.' "
The El Cajon Police Department notified the school of Hoffman's suicide early yesterday, Principal Georgette Torres said. The group of teachers, administrators and the school psychologist that make up the school's crisis team then met and discussed how to respond.
Torres, Barnes and the school's psychologist met with each of the students who had been wounded and said their doors would be open all day. They also called the students' parents.
"The students who were injured kind of have a relationship with us now, and I wanted them to feel like they have all of us available to talk to right now," Torres said.
She sent a memo to all teachers to look out for students who were upset and let them know that the school's guidance office was there to help.
Fran Zumwalt, one of two teachers injured by the gunfire, said her reaction was partly one of relief that she won't have to make a statement at Hoffman's sentencing hearing.
"I'm very sad about the tragedy of the whole story, including Jason Hoffman's life," she said. "He obviously didn't get what he needed."
Tobey Halstead, a student who had been injured, said he too had conflicting emotions, but "everything's over and my life's going to go on," he said.
Several students said there was little talk about Hoffman's death at school yesterday, and some didn't hear of it until classes were over. Sophomore Jena Harper said she and her friends fell silent when they heard.
"I kind of thought it was cowardly of him," Jena said. "He should have been able to face the consequences."
Senior Kerri Cummings, who wants to teach at Granite Hills after attending college, said there are students and teachers on campus who "were afraid he was going to get out of jail and come back in 10 years and do it again." But Cummings said she thought Hoffman would be in prison for so long that he'd die there or be very old when he got out.
"I just kind of wanted to forget about the whole thing," Kerri said. "I'm not really upset about it anyway."
