Man With a Gun, Knife at Jr. High Is Arrested

A 23-year-old transient who was carrying a concealed AK-47 semiautomatic rifle brandished a knife at an Anaheim junior high school custodian and struck at least one student before being captured by police Thursday, authorities said.

No one was injured, but the episode left the custodian and students at El Rancho Junior High School shaken. School officials hope to use the incident, in which several students chased the man, as a lesson in how not to deal with strangers on campus.

Police identified the man as Robert Lawrence Houston, who was being held at the Anaheim Detention Facility in lieu of $10,000 bail on charges of trespassing on school property and brandishing a knife. Papers found among the man’s belongings indicate he has a post office box in the city of Orange, but there was no indication of his residence, a police spokesman said.

Houston was captured several blocks away from the school carrying a large nylon bag, from which police retrieved an AK-47 semiautomatic, a military-style weapon that is sold legally in gun stores, three clips of ammunition and a kit (still in its Styrofoam packaging) containing a 6-inch knife and a bayonet-type attachment.

Results of a preliminary inspection indicate that the gun appears never to have been fired and was probably purchased recently, Anaheim police spokesman Pete De Paola said.

“Right now there is no indication of why he had the weapon and what he intended to do with it,” De Paola said.

The incident at El Rancho, on Del Giorgio Road in the Anaheim Hills, began at about 10:30 a.m. when a school custodian noticed a man on the roof of the cafeteria, according to principal Ralph Jameson.

After the man jumped to the ground, he was approached by the custodian and asked to go to the principal’s office so that he could be escorted off campus grounds.

But instead the man started to run away and was pursued by the custodian, a teacher who had been conducting a physical education class outside and several students.

Jameson said the students misinterpreted the custodian’s shouts to the teacher to help catch the man and gave chase themselves, despite calls by the teacher to stay behind.

“The teacher did tell them not to follow, but it was a confusing situation and he was assisting in the pursuit,” he said.

One of the students caught up with the man and was struck while trying to grab at the nylon bag, Jameson said. The student, an eighth-grader whose name was not released, was sent home shaken but unhurt.

The custodian also caught up with the man, who turned on him with the knife.

The custodian, who did not wish to reveal his name for fear of reprisals, recounted what happened next:

“He continued to run away, but he tripped and fell down and when he did I jumped on the knife. I said, ‘I have the knife now’ and I told him he’d have to come and talk to the principal.”

The man then ran away from the custodian, but was picked up minutes later by police .

“I really wasn’t scared during the whole time but after the police arrived and took him he looked very badly at me.

“I’m just happy I was able to do something for the school. When strangers come onto campus you have to be very careful,” the custodian said.

That is a point school officials will try to get across to students after the incident, assistant principal John Bellow said. Officials prepared a flyer for students to take home to parents Thursday explaining the incident.

Today, officials intend to hold several sessions with students to go over what should be done if they notice a stranger on the school grounds.

“Obviously the first concern is that students don’t get involved in a situation but alert teachers to what is going on,” Bellows said. “What we hope to do is turn this into a positive learning experience.”