Security at Calabasas High Tightened After Shooting

Responding to a shooting at Calabasas High School, Las Virgenes Unified School District officials said Thursday they are instituting security measures and programs to prevent similar incidents on the campus.

Supt. Albert Marley said two rolling gates would be installed at the high school’s two parking lots. The campus, which is located on rugged terrain, presently has no gates or fences.

“I guess it’s just a sign of the times,” Marley said. “We’ve been able to have our schools open without any locked gates or high fences. But we now have to ask if we’re approaching a time when that is no longer possible.

“Whether it’s the big city coming out to Calabasas or the fact that we’re no longer in the ‘60s or ‘70s, the circumstances in society may be different enough where we can no longer act that way.”

In addition, Marley said programs to study the changing ethnic composition of the school population and the surrounding community would be implemented by the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

“Our student population is changing,” he said. “It’s relatively skewed to the rest of the world, and we still don’t have the racial mix of places like Burbank. But things have changed, and we feel we should get a handle on it.”

However, Marley said, the shooting incident was not racially motivated, even though the clash was between white and Korean youths.

A Calabasas High School student was arrested Tuesday by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies on suspicion of attempted murder in connection with a shooting outside the high school Monday, officials said.

Several students from Taft High School and other San Fernando Valley schools had driven to the Calabasas campus seeking revenge for the beating of a fellow student at Taft last week, said Detective John Loftus.

At one point, a Calabasas High School student fired several shots at one of three cars in which the other students were riding, Loftus said. No one was injured in the incident.

“The fact that there were Anglo and Korean students involved, that can’t be denied,” Marley said. “But it was an isolated incident, a disagreement between kids.”

He said deputies had been stationed at the school all week, and that another deputy would serve as a school resource officer for an indefinite period.