Bus With 50 Schoolchildren Fired Upon by BB Pellets

A school bus carrying 50 to 60 junior high school students was hit at least three times by BB pellets when it was fired upon while traveling along a San Clemente residential street Thursday afternoon, officials said. No students were injured.

San Clemente police arrested two boys, 14 and 15, and confiscated four BB guns from a house the suspects entered after the incident, San Clemente Police Lt. Steve Bernardi said. BB pellets were found lodged in three bus windows, authorities said.

San Clemente police, mindful of last week’s elementary school massacre in Stockton, rushed to the scene in full force and cordoned off the area upon hearing of the shooting, Sgt. Paul Falk said.

“That’s probably the first thing that everyone thought of” when school officials were informed that a school bus had been fired upon, said Jacqueline Cerra, community relations officer for the Capistrano Unified School District. “That couldn’t help but be something that crosses your mind.”

Second Bus to Leave

Cerra said the bus loaded with seventh- and eighth-graders was the second to leave Shorecliffs Junior High School, after classes concluded at 3 p.m. About 3:20 p.m., as the bus drove along Via Ballena--a street traveled by many of the school buses--it was fired upon, she said.

Students later told police that they saw three youths run into a house along the street after the shots were fired, Falk said.

Cerra said the driver of the bus immediately radioed to the district’s transportation department supervisor, who contacted police. The SWAT team was on the scene in less than 3 minutes, she said.

Falk said the driver, Sandy Evans, stopped the bus and calmly told the students to get out. When police arrived on the scene with guns drawn and accompanied by search dogs, the children were escorted on foot back to the school, about 2 blocks away, Falk said. The youngsters were followed by officers in patrol cars, lights flashing.

Several other school buses were stopped behind the bus that had been fired on, and when police arrived, “the first thing the officers did was have them back down the street, to get the kids out of there,” Bernardi said.

Police also immediately cordoned off both sides of Via Ballena and began a house-to-house search, Falk said.

The two boys who were arrested were found inside a home in the 200 block of Via Ballena, where one of the boys lives, Bernardi said. Bernardi said he had no information about a third suspect.

Nell Welborne said the bus stopped in front of her house, also in the 200 block of Via Ballena. “I walked out and a cop said to get back in the house before I got shot,” said Welborne, who heard no shots fired.

At the school, the students aboard the bus were detained for about an hour and school district officials called for a second bus to take them home. Each was given a note for their parents, explaining what had happened, Cerra said.

But one mother, who apparently heard a news report on the shooting, rushed to the school. “My son was on that bus. I want to know if he was hurt,” the mother panted to a police officer stationed at a roadblock.

“No one’s hurt,” the female officer replied. “Everyone is up at the junior high school.”

While waiting for their school books and other belongings to be returned from the first bus, the students spoke excitedly about the shooting.

According to eighth-grader Kristina Obradovic, 13, the bus had just left the school when the shots were fired. She said they did not know they were being fired upon until the bus stopped and the pellet holes were discovered.

“It felt like rocks were hitting the bus,” she said. “Everybody just laughed at first.”

But when they discovered three pellet marks in the glass--two on a window on the left side of the bus and one on a window at the rear right seat--”everybody got quiet,” said Bobby Birtwell, 13.

“And then everybody started talking about it and wondering what happened,” the eighth-grader said.

That was when some of the students realized why they had seen three high-school age youths running into a house right after they heard what sounded like rocks hitting the bus.

There was no panic and no crying after the students realized that they had been under attack. Instead, they said, they filed calmly out of the bus at the bus driver’s direction.

When San Clemente Fire Department paramedics arrived, they asked if anyone was hurt. No one was, but students said that Hope Mitchell, 13, came within an inch and a half of being struck in the head by one of the pellets, which was embedded in her half-open window.

“Any BB can hurt,” Sgt. Falk said, noting that if a BB is strong enough to break glass it could cause potentially serious injury.

Falk said there have not been any previous reported attacks on school buses or students.

But students said this is just the latest incident of people bombarding their bus with foreign objects. In recent weeks, they said, the bus has been hit by water balloons, eggs, tomatoes and spray paint; but nothing as serious as a BB pellet.

“It’s like it’s always our bus,” said Tim Zardeneta, 12, a seventh-grader who shrugged when asked why.

Afterward, the students chirped excitedly among themselves about the incident. Marissa Flynn, 12, seemed to sum up the popular sentiment by saying: “It was fun, kind of exciting.”