Shooting Climaxed Tagging Crew’s Crime Spree : Courts: Details of the events leading to the Chatsworth High incident are given at the arraignment of a Burbank boy.

A tagging crew on a wild ride robbed several people and fought rival taggers before driving to Chatsworth High School where one of them shot a 17-year-old student in front of the school when the boy refused to give up his backpack, according to the police report on last week’s shooting.

Details about events leading up to the shooting came during the arraignment Monday of a 17-year-old Burbank boy charged with being an accessory to the crime for allegedly driving the triggerman from the crime scene to a second vehicle after he gunned down Gabriel Gettleson, a senior at the school.

Gettleson remains hospitalized at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, a family friend said.

During a brief court appearance in San Fernando Valley Juvenile Court in Sylmar, a court commissioner denied a request by the teen-age driver to be released to his mother’s custody and remanded him back to Juvenile Hall to await a Jan. 5 hearing where he is scheduled to enter a plea.

Juvenile Court Commissioner Jack Gold said the youth was a danger to himself and the community.

“He decided to associate himself with this tagging crew, which is no better or worse than being in a gang,” Gold said. “And on one of those stops, got into a fight with another group, and along the way stopped and robbed other victims. If he didn’t want to be involved, he shouldn’t have been with a tagging crew.”

The attack, which was the latest of several shootings in and near city schools during the past year, occurred Wednesday about an hour before classes ended for the day.

While Gettleson was waiting outside the school for a ride from his mother, two youths got out of a car--which police believe was a white BMW--and tried to wrestle his backpack away from him. When they failed, one of them shot Gettleson three times--in the left hip, left shoulder and chest.

The backpack contained only books, police said.

About 10 minutes after the attack, police arrested five teen-agers whom witnesses saw leave the shooting area in a blue Jeep Cherokee that had pulled up with the BMW.

According to police, the gunman escaped by jumping onto the Jeep and getting a ride to the BMW, which had also been driven away from the school.

Four of the five teens found in the Jeep have since been released without being charged. The gunman and another suspect remain at large.

LAPD Lt. Kyle Jackson said Monday that police were confident that, in time, they would apprehend the other suspects.

“We feel certain that we will eventually catch them,” he said. “It’s a long process. They’ve been involved in a long spree of crimes.”

Throughout the hearing Monday, the sole teen charged so far sat quietly beside John H. Heine, his attorney. His mother sat behind him, listening intently to the proceedings as they were translated into Spanish.

Heine told the commissioner that his client was not involved in the shooting.

“He was indeed present . . . but was not involved,” Heine said. “Apparently, the shooter was not an occupant of his car.”

“This is a very serious crime,” responded Deputy Dist. Atty. Sharon Garabedian. “We believe this young man is a threat to the community. . . . He admitted he was with the shooter, caravaning with the white BMW . . . that (the shooter) got on the rear hatch of the Jeep and he drove him back to the BMW. He even said he thought (the shooter) was going to take someone’s backpack.”