Teen-Ager Shot on Dorsey Campus : Violence: The 15-year-old is in critical condition. Principal says the assailants, who fled, are not students at the high school.

A 15-year-old boy, an innocent bystander to an argument, was shot and critically wounded Tuesday at Dorsey High School in Southwest Los Angeles as classes resumed for the new school year.

Los Angeles Police Lt. Sal Hoyos said the shooting occurred about 2:30 p.m. as 2,000 students were queuing up to register for classes. The unidentified boy, shot in the chest and back, was taken to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, where a spokeswoman said he was undergoing surgery.

The school’s principal, Jerelene Wells, said the boy was seeking a permit to transfer to Dorsey from his home school in central Los Angeles when an argument between three youths and another student broke out at 1:30 p.m. She said the three youths left, then returned and shot the boy.

“This youngster was not involved in any way with the fight,” Hoyos said. “He was not a gang member. He was just here and he got shot.”

Hoyos added that police are seeking the three youths, one of whom reportedly drew out a handgun and “just aimed it at the crowd and fired” before fleeing with his companions.

Wells said metal detectors were available but were not being used in the registration area on Tuesday.

Althea Anderson, 14, who said she reluctantly entered the school this fall as a ninth-grader, was standing in line when the shooting occurred.

“There were some shots,” she said. “All I know is that things went crazy and everybody started running. I do not want to go to this school.”

The girl’s mother, Sonia Bell, who arrived at the campus after the shooting, said she had tried to soothe her daughter’s earlier concerns about attending Dorsey.

“I told her all schools have problems. It’s bad everywhere,” Bell said. “But now I’m convinced I’m going to have to take her out of this school.”

Officers did not know if the shooting was gang-related.

The shooting occurred as the Board of Education was holding its regular meeting, which included the approval of a report on ways to stem school violence.

School board member Mark Slavkin convened the Emergency Task Force on Youth Violence, a coalition of top government and law enforcement officials, after two fatal shootings at other Los Angeles Unified School District high school campuses last school year.

“It is ironic that this item comes before us today as we hear reports of another very sensitive issue at a school,” said Slavkin, referring to the Dorsey shooting.

During the last school year, there were fatal shootings at Fairfax and Reseda high schools. After those killings, school district officials took steps to beef up security, including setting up metal detectors to be used randomly at campuses. They also tightened expulsion policies for students caught with weapons at school.

The Los Angeles Police Department also has begun deploying more officers to areas around schools before and after school hours in a collaborative effort with school district police and other law enforcement agencies.

Dorsey has been troubled by violence in recent years. In March, 1992, a college-bound honors student, a member of the varsity baseball team, pulled out a gun and shot himself to death in front of teammates as they were returning from a game on a school bus. In October, 1991, cross-town rival Banning High forfeited a football game rather than play on the Dorsey campus in the wake of two shootings nearby.

A few years earlier, a Dorsey honors student was caught in a cross-fire between rival gangs and killed.

But Dorsey High’s football team co-captain, Ronnie Moore, said Tuesday that the school has an undeserved reputation for violence.

“The school often gets blamed for the problems in the community,” he said. “Dorsey is not a bad school.”

Times staff writers Stephanie Chavez and Diane Seo contributed to this story.