March 6, 2001

SANTEE -- The "angry young man" who opened fire at Santana High School Monday morning shot at least two of his victims in the back and fired indiscriminately at others who walked into his view, authorities said.

The suspect, identified as Charles "Andy" Williams, 15, of Santee, fired about 30 rounds from a .22-caliber Arminius long rifle revolver, said Lt. Jerry Lewis of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department homicide section. The eight-round weapon was fully loaded and cocked when armed officers confronted him.

"This was an angry young man who, for reasons unknown to us, started firing indiscriminately, first at two individuals who happened to be in the bathroom and then at students and staff who passed by the bathroom door," Lewis said at a morning news conference at Santee City Hall.

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Williams is in custody in a juvenile detention facility and is scheduled to be arraigned as an adult in the El Cajon Courthouse of San Diego County Superior Court at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Williams was cooperative when detectives interviewed him, but showed no remorse, Lewis said.

Students Bryan Zuckor, 14, and Randy Gordon, 17, died and 11 other students and two adults -- a special education student teacher and a campus supervisor -- were injured in the 9:20 a.m. rampage. It was the worst school shooting in the United States since two Columbine High School students killed 12 fellow students and a teacher and wounded 23 others in Littleton, Colo., in April 1999.

Williams' mother, Linda Wells, tearfully expressed sorrow for the victims' families as she opened her door a crack to a television reporter at her home in North Augusta, S.C., the Associated Press reported.

"My heart goes out to them. They've lost their babies, their hopes, their dreams for their futures, " Wells told WJBF-TV in Augusta, Ga.

Williams' father, Charles Williams, a lab technician at Naval Medical Center San Diego, made no public comments.

'Deep mourning'

"It's helping a lot to know that so many people care. It's really hard," said Santana junior Rebecca Tarnow, who knew the students who were killed. "They're not going to be here when we go back to school. They're not going to be here and it's going to be really hard to think about that."

Residents of the 60,000-resident suburb of Santee are taking the day one step at a time, but the community will be suffering long after the glare of the media spotlight has faded, Mayor Randy Voepoel said.

STEVE PEREZ / Signon San Diego  Mourners gather Tuesday at a makeshift memorial outside Santana High School.

"So I'm asking people to keep us in their thoughts and prayers. Call us up six months from now and say, 'Santee, can we give you a hand?' Call us up a year from now," Voepoel said.

"East County is in mourning today. Deep mourning," said San Diego County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, whose district includes Santee.

The Grossmont Union High School District has been providing intensive counseling support to students, parents and staff members, Superintendent Granger B. Ward said. All Santana High School employees were in a debriefing and counseling session Tuesday morning.

Deputies were assigned to all high schools and middle schools in the district on Tuesday "to be of any kind of service that would be needed," Sheriff Bill Kolender said.

Santana High School will reopen at 9:25 a.m. Wednesday, but the school day will be devoted to providing support for the students, Ward said.

Counselors are being provided by the San Diego County Office of Mental Health, the San Diego County and Orange County American Red Cross and the federal Department of Education, Ward said.

"We will begin the process of bringing our community back together," Ward said. "We can never forget this incident, but we need to heal. We need to bring back the ties that have been broken."

Two students who had said Williams had told them of his plans ahead of time will not immediately be allowed back on campus, Ward said. The district is investigating their claims and could discipline them.

"We're going to take this one step at a time and look at legal counsel and what is appropriate in this circumstance," Ward said. "I cannot give you the exact action we will take at this point."

More details

Investigators had talked with two students who said Williams had told them he planned to bring a gun to school on Monday, but an adult – Chris Reynolds, who has been dating Williams' friend's mother – had yet to be interviewed, Lewis said.

Reynolds and the teens had told reporters Monday they hadn't believed Williams was serious.

The boy's father told investigators that the long rifle revolver used in the shooting came from his locked gun cabinet, Lewis said.

"Long rifle" refers to the type of cheap, small-caliber ammunition used in such handguns.

The boy was believed to have brought as many as 40 rounds to school.

Deputies removed seven rifles – in addition to a computer hard drive and other evidence – Monday night from the apartment where Williams lived with his father.

The shooter first opened fire on two classmates in a boys' restroom, Lewis said. One was struck in the back of the head and died after he was taken to a local hospital. The other, who was shot just outside the bathroom, was struck in the back and was found dead lying on the grass between two buildings.

Arminius .22

The shooter fired at least 30 rounds from the eight-round gun, shooting indiscriminately at students and adults as they came into view from the entrance to the restroom, Lewis said. There was no evidence that the boy had a speed-loader, a small mechanical device that holds a full load of bullets in position to make it easier to reload a revolver.

"Victims and witnesses at the scene all said he was mad at something," Lewis said. "They don't know if he was mad at the school, at students, at life, at home. He was an angry young man." Impact marks were found on the library, the administrative building, and several other nearby buildings, Lewis said. Bullet holes were found in a food cart, the cage surrounding a soft-drink machine and in a number of student backpacks discarded at the scene.

The evidence and comments from witnesses suggest that the teen was firing randomly at "anybody who was going by," Lewis said.

"Any student who went by there within his range, he was shooting at them," Lewis said.

Rumors

• Had Williams attended some sort of anger-management session earlier Monday? Ward said the district hadn't sponsored any such session, but that it was possible the boy had attended a private session.

• Had the shooter targeted varsity athletes, as the gunmen at Columbine had? Lewis said there was no indication any group had been targeted.

• Had a third student told detectives that he had been warned by Williams? Lewis said he did not know the outcome of every interview conducted by more than 50 detectives from various agencies.

• Had Williams talked about fleeing to Mexico after shooting? Lewis said he did not know.

Quick response

"Based on that information, it is our belief that the quick response and quick reactions of a sheriff's deputy and an off-duty San Diego police officer were able to prevent further individuals from being shot," Lewis said.

Officer Robert Clark was arriving at the school to register his own child for classes when the shooting began. Deputy Ali Perez and other deputies responded shortly afterward in response to an emergency call about an assault on campus.

Ward also credited local law enforcement agencies for "an amazingly quick response" to the shooting.

"They're the reasons that this tragedy was not even greater than it is," Ward said.

Staff members at Santana High School also worked to get as many students out of the line of fire as quickly as possible.

"Those folks did a heroic job, all of them, in trying to lessen the tragedy that we're facing now," Ward said.

Lessons of Columbine

"Did we do anything? Yes, we did," Jacob said. "We've been doing quite a bit."

Thousands of county students have gone through anti-violence programs and the county has spent millions of dollars on after-school programs, juvenile court programs and other diversion efforts "to turn around the lives of those children that have been classified as at risk students," Jacob said.

"But it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to prevent this tragedy," she said. "And I frankly don't know if anything could have prevented it."

She said many people have been wondering whether the shooting could have been prevented if either of the two kids who said Williams had warned them had told authorities.

"Would it have made a difference? None of us will ever know," she said. "But all of the programs, all of the anti-violence training, the one most crucial violence prevention is a strong family."

Campus re-opened Tuesday night

Before they did, authorities allowed news photographers and reporters on the campus. They arrived to find a school sanitized of any signs of violence. Crews had cleaned up the shooting scene and taped over bullet holes in the walls. Wet paint covered the walls of the boys bathroom where the shooting began.

STEVE PEREZ / Signon San Diego  The door of the boys bathroom where the shooting began at Santana High School warns of wet paint, one of a number of steps authorities took to prepare for the re-opening of the campus.

"It seems like a regular school night, but you just had this feeling inside of you like it was hollow," freshman Angela Anderson said. "There wasn't any fear, but when I saw the tape over the bullet holes and the walls, that scared me."

Some weren't ready to return.

"I don't feel safe anymore," said senior Nicole LaPage, 18, who with a friend taped a poster to the front of the school. She could only watch, however, as students, parents and teachers streamed inside the gates.

Another student, Tiffany Washington, a freshman, says she's not eager to return to the campus, either

"You never know when it's going to happen again," she said of the possibility of more violence.

Across the street from where a monument to the victims towered, filled with flowers, balloons, notes and posters bearing messages of sympathy, two friends of Williams quietly posted a sign of their own.

It read: "We're with you Andy in the end."

Asked why they decided to post the sign, Williams' friend Josh Stevens replied:

"Even with what he did, we still love him. I love this guy. He made a mistake and we're still hoping for the best for him."

Another friend, who declined to identify himself other than by the initials A.J., appeared angry as he pounded black tape onto a wall to hold the sign. The boy said he would try to get along with his peers on campus, despite his friendship with Williams.

"But if you're going to learn anything from this, then, learn not to pick on people that are smaller than you," he said. "Because someday they just might break, retaliate.

"I wouldn't pick on people that are smaller than you for the sake of feeling better about yourself, because that's exactly what people did to Andy."

Earlier, Sharon Davis, wife of Gov. Gray Davis and a 1972 Santana High graduate, visited Santee and talked with community leaders and students.

At Sonrise Community Church, which has opened its doors for grief counseling, she told reporters she was shocked when she heard reports of the shooting.

"I couldn't believe it was Santana, the school I attended, because we all look back on our high school years as idyllic" she said, adding that people eventually will view the shooting for what it was ... an isolated incident."

 SignOn San Diego staff members Steve Perez and Greg Magnus contributed to the Santana High shooting coverage. Associated Press stories were used in compiling this report.