Gangs Send a School Back Into Mourning : Violence: Paramount High cheerleader dies after being shot in the head near campus. Another student was killed in June.

The sign outside Paramount High School said “Catch the Pirate Spirit,” but there was not much school spirit evident Wednesday as students, for the second time in four months, mourned the loss of one of their own to gang violence at the edge of the campus.

Sheila Lorta died early Wednesday, about 12 hours after the popular cheerleader was struck in the head by a bullet during gang gunfire. The 16-year-old had been crossing the street in front of the school Tuesday afternoon, returning from a McDonald’s restaurant to cheerleading practice.

Wednesday morning, most of the students had heard the news by the time they arrived for class. There were tears. There was anger. There was an unmistakable “Why us?” feeling.

In June, another high-profile student, Alfred Clark, was gunned down in the McDonald’s when he refused to give up a compact disc player to gang members. The two-sport athlete was to have graduated with honors the next day.

“First Alfred and now Sheila,” said Joanna Patron, a ninth-grader at the school on Downey Avenue. “We don’t know who is going to get shot next. It’s so scary because these were regular kids. They weren’t into gangs. But they end up dead. Why?”

School officials responded to the latest shooting by increasing the number of unarmed security guards on campus Wednesday and asking the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to increase patrols.

As many as three sheriff’s patrol cars at a time moved slowly around the school and nearby parking lots. No arrests have been made in the shooting that investigators classified as gang-related.

Julie Mayer, assistant superintendent of the Paramount School District, said that beginning today students will not be allowed to leave campus for lunch at the McDonald’s and other nearby fast-food restaurants. Mayer stressed that the school was safe and that the violence occurred outside the sprawling, gated campus.

“In the interest of safety, we want to make sure the students do not leave campus,” she said.

The move is not unusual. Herb Graham, director of police and administrative services for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said closing campuses during lunchtime is a safety measure his district has used in the past.

“It reduces the number of potential targets on the street,” Graham said. “We will shut a campus down if we have trouble in the area. We have utilized it as a safety measure during periods of crisis.”

Meanwhile on Wednesday, four psychologists and other crisis-intervention counselors were on the Paramount High campus to help students deal with grief and shock from Sheila’s death. Many of her closest friends did not attend school Wednesday.

Principal Maureen Sanders addressed students over the loudspeaker and teachers discussed the shooting with smaller groups of students.

“I’m giving a lot of hugs today,” said Jane Dake, a staff assistant at the school for 20 years. “That’s what we are here for.”

The popular cheerleader’s slaying drove home the reality of danger on the streets just outside the school. Some students blamed the school administration for safety problems off campus.

Looking down at the red-painted curb in front of the school, 11th-grader Quincy Jones said, “When we pass this red line at the curb we take our lives in our own hands. The school does not provide enough security. Now two students are dead.”

Jose Hernandez, a 10th-grader who was a friend of Sheila and was standing in front of the school when she was shot, said he wants to go to another school where he does not have to worry about being killed.

“You feel scared when you leave,” he said of the campus. “It’s no way to go to school.”

He and other students said there are gang members who attend Paramount but most students believe that the shooting Tuesday, in which a gunman on a bicycle fired at a passing car, involved outsiders. Sheriff’s investigators said they too believe the gunman and those in the car were not students.

Those who knew Sheila described her as an outgoing girl. She was a peer counselor and a junior varsity softball player in addition to being a cheerleader. An acquaintance said that last year the Bellflower girl set her sights on becoming a cheerleader and worked hard to lose weight and learn cheers.

“She was just a really good friend,” classmate Susan Huerta said tearfully as she arrived at school Wednesday. “She was everybody’s friend. . . . It just makes you wonder, why her of all people. I can’t believe it.”

The killing shook parents as well. Rhonda McElroy was one of many who escorted her children to the school’s gate. Her ninth-grade daughter, Lawanza, had left the campus Tuesday afternoon just minutes before the shooting.

“Parents always felt, ‘Well, my child is in school, she’s safe,’ but not anymore if you have to worry about them right on the front curb,” McElroy said. She made arrangements to pick up her daughter after classes at a rear schoolyard gate, which she believes is safer than the front.

Though many students were visibly upset by the death of their classmate, a handful exhibited a hardness to the violence. Groups of boys mugged for TV cameras, sarcastically saying, “Can’t we all get along?”--an apparent reference to Rodney G. King’s plea to stop the violence during the riots earlier this year.

And 10th-grader Leti Rodriguez said she was resigned to the fact that violence could occur right outside her school.

“I’m not scared,” she said. “If it happens, it happens. There is nothing that you can do about it. It’s just the way the streets are.”