March 6, 2001

/ When a 15-year-old boy allegedly took a gun to Santana High School yesterday, he wasn't the only one who knew it.

Santee teen Charles "Andy" Williams reportedly had told friends over the weekend of his plans to bring a firearm to campus. But they didn't think he was serious.

The word never got to the authorities.

Those who work with teens say secrets often present a moral dilemma for adolescents. At a time when peers supplant parents as confidants, adolescents can construe revealing a friend's secret, even a dangerous one, as betrayal.

Such secrecy has new gravity in the post-Columbine era, consequences that were reinforced when the shock of campus shootings came home to San Diego County yesterday.

Educators, government researchers and mental health professionals are seeking new ways to reach youths. Their best efforts at penetrating the dark corners of adolescence can run up against distrust, fear, denial and teen-agers' notions of peer loyalty.

Teens want to do the right thing, said Timothy Murphy, a Fallbrook psychiatrist. They just don't know what the right thing is. And with the popularity of zero-tolerance discipline codes, the consequences of reporting threats are more serious than in the past.

An "us vs. them" perspective grows out of adolescents' search for an identity independent of grown-ups, said Gabrielle Shapiro, a psychiatrist and president of the San Diego chapter of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Investing more in your peers is part of the initiation rite into young adulthood.

"Part of that feeling involves 'We're different from them,' " Shapiro said.

But Shapiro said yesterday's fatal shooting is a stark reminder that all threats must be taken seriously, by kids as well as adults. Schools and communities also need to do more to identify troubled teens who need professional help.

"We are all so busy chasing the (Stanford-9) and this test and that test, and (there are) parents that work more. We may not really be noticing these kids that are in deep pain and grief," Shapiro said.

In more than 75 percent of school shootings examined by the U.S. Secret Service for an October report, the attacker told someone about his plans, almost always a peer. The report cites a case in which one student told 24 friends and classmates about his interest in killing other youths, building bombs or making an attack on the school.

No adults knew that a 15-year-old boy had brought a gun to Serra High School in Tierrasanta Dec. 1 until it went off. Teens knew, though. Police investigators discovered that several students had known about the gun. One girl told them she'd seen it that day.

Not every adolescent secret is a ticking time bomb that detonates, however.

On a day early last school year, for example, the buzz on the Mira Mesa High campus was about a boy who intended to shoot at band members during a pep rally. In that case, students told adults. Police went to the boy's house and arrested him.

Since the April 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, teen-agers appear to be more forthcoming about safety threats, said William Modzeleski of the U.S. Department of Education, a co-author of the Secret Service report on school shootings.

"I think Columbine was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back, where kids woke up, parents woke up and the country woke up and said, 'This is serious,' " Modzeleski said.

In January, an 18-year-old photo lab clerk in Cupertino is reported to have said Columbine was on her mind when she called police about photos depicting a young man posing with an arsenal of guns. Police arrested him and said the 19-year-old student at De Anza Community College in Northern California had planned a shooting rampage in the college cafeteria the next day.

Teen-agers in Fort Collins, Colo., called police in January when they heard about a plan for "re-doing Columbine." Police seized guns, ammunition and a written plan from the home of one boy alleged to have been involved in the plot.

School safety experts agree that trust is paramount in promoting communication. So is flexibility. Teens will open up at unexpected times.

When they do, Murphy said, "you have to be prepared to put down whatever you're doing and take advantage of the opportunity."

Marisa Reddy, a research psychologist for the Secret Service and a co-author of the report on school shootings, said schools need to have a policy on what to do when students come forth with information on safety threats.

In adolescence, part of a student's education is learning how to discern between privacy and secrecy.

"It's not that kids are falling short in some way," Reddy said. "It's that it's a genuinely tough decision."