RESEDA : Lungren Conducts Forum on Violence

Less than a year after a 17-year-old was gunned down in a hallway at Reseda High School, Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren held a forum on the campus to give parents, teachers, administrators and students a chance to voice their concerns about school safety.

But one of the most poignant questions raised at the forum--held Tuesday in an assembly hall with about 175 students and teachers--came after the program ended, when Evangeline Buckland, 15, approached Lungren.

“Why did it take two deaths before anyone started doing anything?” Buckland asked, referring to fatal shootings at Reseda and Fairfax high schools earlier this year. “I had close friends that were around,” she said about the shooting death of Micheal Ensley at Reseda in February. “It could’ve been one of them.”

Lungren assured Buckland that in his mind, school violence is a top priority.

“For me, the most important issue in the schools is safety,” Lungren said. “You simply can’t have an educational environment unless it is safe.”

Lungren’s visit was the second of three school visits he will make in the state this month to explain his strategies for improving safety on campuses ad learn what tactics the schools have begun. Lungren’s strategy includes a hot line number that students can use to report weapons on campus as well as a mandatory school safety curriculum for teachers and administrators enacted by the state Legislature earlier this month. He also wants to create gun-free zones within 1,000 feet of a school.

The attorney general presented awards to Margaret Ensley, whose son Micheal was shot at Reseda, and Mildred Hillard, whose son, Demetrius Rice, was killed at Fairfax High School.

Both mothers vowed to continue pressuring lawmakers to enact more laws to curtail campus violence.