2 Students Held in Fairfax High Fatal Shooting

Two students from Fairfax High School were arrested at their homes late Friday night and early Saturday on suspicion of fatally shooting Antoine (Tony) Thompson, a graduate of the school who had returned to the campus Friday to visit a teacher, police said.

The students, ages 15 and 17, are believed to be gang members, but police would not release their names or any other information because they are juveniles, police said. They were being held and face a hearing Monday.

Thompson, 18, who relatives and school officials said did not belong to a gang, was gunned down in a school hallway after visiting a teacher who helped him overcome dyslexia--an educational handicap that can cause speech and reading impairment. Thompson began attending West Los Angeles College last week.

The shooting apparently occurred after Thompson and several teen-age boys got into an argument over the use of a pay telephone, police said. More arrests may be made, they added.

School officials, who dismissed students on Friday after the shooting, spent much of Saturday preparing for the reopening of school on Monday. Principal Warren Steinberg said the district will assign two or three campus police officers to supplement the school’s two-member patrol on Monday, and several parents who are active in the school will be on campus to answer phone calls from parents of children who might be afraid to return.

“We don’t have a gang problem at the school, and I am not fearful that something will happen, but I just think to have some additional support there will be comforting to everybody,” Steinberg said. “If I had children and lived in the area, I would be absolutely confident and comfortable having my kids going to Fairfax.”

Steinberg said the school district’s mental health crisis team will also be at the school to provide counseling for students and teachers, and added that he will address the student body in an effort to quell rumors about the shooting and to encourage students to take advantage of the counseling.

Eva S. Hain, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Unified School District, also urged students to return to school and to take advantage of the counseling.