Kid Futures, Inc.

Santee, CA School Shooting

Aug 29, 2001

March 6, 2001


Shooting at School Leaves 2 Dead and 13 Hurt

By TODD S. PURDUM






The Associated Press
Unidentified students console each other after a shooting at Santana High School, in Santee, Calif., in which at least two students were killed. The suspect, a ninth-grader, was apprehended.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


ANTEE, Calif., March 5 - A 15-year-old high school freshman whose threats about taking a gun to school were apparently shrugged off as not serious opened fire at his campus in this San Diego suburb this morning, the authorities said, killing 2 fellow students and wounding 13 other people in the worst episode of school violence since the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999.

The authorities said the teenager used a .22 caliber pistol, and surrendered on his knees in a school restroom, saying, "It's only me."

Under a California law that leaves no discretion in such cases, officials said the young man would be charged as an adult with murder, assault and weapons possession, though they said his status as a juvenile barred the release of his name.

"I know in your minds is the overriding question: `Why?' " District Attorney Paul Pfingst said at a news conference this afternoon. "The suspect has made statements. I will not share the contents of the statements with you at this time, but there is no real answer. I am not sure in any real way we will ever know why."

Witnesses described pandemonium and panic as the 1,900 students of Santana High School in this bedroom community of 58,000 people about 20 miles northeast of downtown San Diego fled the campus after the shootings shortly before 9:30 a.m. Within minutes, sheriff's deputies and police officers, including an off-duty officer who was registering his daughter at the school, were on the scene and cornered the suspect in the bathroom.

The dead students were identified as Brian Zuckor, 14, and Randy Gordon, 17. The authorities said Randy's sister, Kirschner Gordon, was injured.

A school security guard and a student teacher were among the wounded. Another youth who witnessed the shooting was treated for injuries he received in a car accident as he fled the scene.

Friends and fellow students painted a sketchy, divergent portrait of the accused gunman, whom they identified as Charles Andrew Williams. Some described the young man, who is known as Andy, as a skinny outsider who was mocked as a nerd, but others said he was sunny and well-liked. Several said that he had joked as recently as the weekend about taking a gun to school, but that he had insisted he was only kidding and no one took him seriously.

Shannon Durrett, 15, was in the women's restroom next to the men's room when the shooting started, and "I heard the tap-tap-tap, tap-tap- tap." She ran outside and saw a school security guard dragging himself along the ground using a food cart as a shield, unable to use his foot. "A few minutes later I saw Andy taken away in handcuffs," she said. "I never thought Andy would do this. He was nice and funny. I never saw him get picked on."

Another student, a 13-year-old who dated Mr. Williams for a month last year, also said, "Andy is real nice." The girl, whose mother would not let a reporter use her name, added: "He's very popular. I hung out with him and we talked about normal kid stuff. He wore the same goofy yellow shirt every day. He was just over at my house Saturday night."

Friends and neighbors said Mr. Williams, whose parents are divorced, had moved here about a year ago from Maryland with his father, Charles Jeffrey Williams, known as Jeff. His mother, Linda Wells, lives in South Carolina, and when told by a reporter today that her son was in custody in the killing, she burst into sobs.

Ms. Wells said her son was a normal, good-natured boy.

The authorities said tonight that they believed the shootings were indiscriminate and that no victims were singled out. Witnesses reported Mr. Williams was smiling as he fired, and officials said he stopped at least once to reload his revolver.

Though at least one of the victims had a Hispanic surname and though some students said the overwhelmingly white school had been the scene of some racial tension, Sheriff William Kolender and other officials discounted any suggestion that the shootings had any racial motivation.

Christopher Reynolds, whose girlfriend, Karen Stevens, is the mother of one of Andy Williams's closest friends, told CNN that Mr. Williams "got picked on a bit" but was a sociable young man. Mr. Reynolds said that some of Mr. Williams's friends said he had made some sort of veiled threat over the weekend and that perhaps a dozen of his fellow students were discussing the remarks.

Mr. Reynolds said that he had questioned Mr. Williams on Sunday night, but that Mr. Williams denied he had any intention of violence.

"No one believed him," Mr. Reynolds said of Mr. Williams's supposed threats. "Everyone can't believe he actually did it." He added: "I do regret that I didn't do something. That's going to be with me for a long time."

The attack was the nation's deadliest school shooting since the April 1999 bloodbath at Columbine High outside Denver, where two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before committing suicide.

In Washington, President Bush called the shooting "a disgraceful act of cowardice."



The California shootings today appeared to share one fundamental common trait with other such shootings by teenagers around the country: the suspect discussed it beforehand.

"Basically, one thing that comes out over and over, not just in school shooting cases but in nearly all homicides by teenagers, is that kids talk about it before they do it," said Paul Mones, a lawyer from Portland, Ore. lawyer who is the author of the book "When a Child Kills" (Simon & Schuster, 1991) and who served on a federal task force that examined school shootings. "Kids want to vent their anger, their worries, their frustrations, their fantasies. They will talk about wanting to get a gun or wanting kill somebody prior to it happening. It has an element in this discussion of gaining the acquiescence, or at least the confidence, of others when they are going to do this." Many adult murderers, by contrast, are highly reclusive and secretive about their intentions.

Obviously, added Mr. Mones, who has represented teenagers charged with murder, there are many cases in which such venting does not presage an actual attempt to kill. But in general, he said, experts who have studied these killings said the best way to prevent them from happening is to urge fellow teenagers to report such conversations if they hear them and for adults to seek help for teenagers who express murderous feelings before they are ever moved to act on them.

Hours after the shooting, Tabitha Vess, 17, a senior, clutched a teddy bear at an Arby's restaurant near the school, still shaken. Ms. Vess was late arriving at school this morning, and was just heading in when students came stampeding out.

"I grew up way too fast today," she said. "I want to be a kid again."