Security Debated After Stabbing : Violence: Friends of Simi student who was fatally attacked say there are many weapons on campus. Officials insist schools are safe.

As students at Valley View Junior High School in Simi Valley struggled Wednesday to cope with their grief at the stabbing death of a ninth-grader, school officials and friends of the slain youth disagreed over the need for improved security at the school.

Friends of Chad Patrick Hubbard, 14, described Valley View as a potentially violent place where many kids carry knives, and they identified the 13-year-old suspect in the stabbing as a “tagger” who sought acceptance by emulating gang members.

They said the dispute between the pair began months ago, but escalated recently after the 13-year-old stole Chad’s baseball cap.

“It just started when they looked at each other funny,” Jon Henley, 16, said. “Then it got worse and worse.”

Yet Supt. Mary Beth Wolford insisted that Simi Valley’s schools are safe, as more than 20 crisis counselors flocked to the junior high to aid students and employees in the wake of the first slaying ever on a Simi Valley school campus.

“Simi Valley is the second safest city of its size in the United States,” Wolford said. “But I would tell parents that does not exclude us from reviewing all of our safety precautions carefully.”

In recent years, school officials have considered building a fence around the school and getting more adults to volunteer as campus supervisors.

But school board member Doug Crosse said such measures would not have prevented Tuesday’s stabbing.

“I don’t think another adult or two supervising on campus would have been able to intervene in this case,” Crosse said.

Last year, school administrators considered screening students with metal detectors, but police officials dissuaded them, saying such devices were not effective in stopping students from bringing weapons to school.

School board member Debbie Sandland said parents and teachers should focus on intervening in the lives of students prone to violence.

“Rather than treating the symptoms, I think we need to look at it at a much earlier age and teach children not to accept violence as a solution to their problems,” Sandland said.

While Chad’s friends said the slain boy was not involved in any gang and do not think gang animosity was a factor in the stabbing, they disputed assertions by school officials that violence is not a problem on the Valley View campus.

“Fights are going on all the time,” said Kelly Cockings, 15, a 10th-grader at Simi Valley High School who attended Valley View last year. “A lot of kids carry knives; they just haven’t used them before this.”

Other students said they would welcome increased security on campus and at the nearby Convenient Food Mart store on Township Avenue where fights between students often break out.

“If you want to fight, you say ‘meet me at Convenient,’ ” Jessica Hammerle, 15, said. “I think it’s time to do something about this, so nobody else gets hurt.”

At school Wednesday, yellow police tape continued to mark off the open air hallway near where Chad was stabbed in the heart with a pocketknife by a classmate as classes ended Tuesday.

Principals from area schools gathered at the junior high to help restore calm, and police swarmed the campus, interviewing witnesses and comforting weeping students, while school officials called parents to inform them of a special meeting tonight to discuss school safety.

School psychologist Pat Madden said he expected that counselors would talk with as many as one-fifth of the school’s 1,000 students Wednesday. “Students may at first feel sadness at the loss of a friend, then they’ll get angry that we have to lose somebody close to us,” Madden said.

“There’s confusion also. They say ‘What do I do now?’ For many, this is their first time grieving a loss like this.’ ”

The Simi Valley Police Department also sent four officers from its DARE department to comfort Valley View students and parents.

Walking home from school, eighth-grader Tony Bova, 13, said discussing his feelings of sadness and anger with teachers and classmates had not erased his fear since the stabbing.

“You can’t really trust anybody,” he said. “If you fight with somebody, you don’t know if they’re going to pull a knife.”

The 13-year-old suspect, who is being held at Juvenile Hall, is expected to be charged today, a spokesman for the Ventura County district attorney’s office said. He will probably appear in court Friday, the spokesman said.

Because he is not yet 16, the suspect cannot be tried as an adult, under California law. If found guilty, his maximum punishment would be confinement with the California Youth Authority until he reaches age 25.

Ventura County prosecutors said because of the gravity of the case, they were sidestepping the normal administrative process to obtain police reports of the incident.

The district attorney’s office assigned the case to one of its top homicide prosecutors, James D. Ellison.

Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Kevin J. McGee said prosecutors have 48 hours after the arrest of a juvenile to file charges, giving them until 3:30 p.m. today to charge the youth suspected of stabbing Chad.

If charges are filed, a public hearing will be held today or Friday, McGee said.

Simi Valley police interviewed several students who witnessed the stabbing, but disclosed little about their investigation.

“It’s my understanding that there was some sort of a confrontation between the two boys before the stabbing took place,” Simi Valley Police Lt. Dick Thomas said. “Who initiated it or how, I just don’t have that information.”

Friends of the slain youth said the stabbing was the culmination of an ongoing dispute between the two boys. They said the long-simmering dispute between the two boys heated up last week when the 13-year-old stole Chad’s baseball cap.

Meanwhile, Ken Miller, an uncle of the slain youth, said arrangements have been made for the funeral, scheduled for Saturday at Simi Covenant Church.

Friends and family members have set up the Chad Hubbard Memorial Fund to help pay for the funeral, which is expected to cost more than $6,000. Donations can be sent to Valley View Junior High School.

“We’ve got kids and neighbors coming over and everybody has just really been great,” Miller said. “We’re all pretty trashed, and it’s just starting to sink in.”

Bob Eichele, pastor of Our Saviour Lutheran Church where Chad was confirmed, on Wednesday said he was preparing remarks for the funeral.

Eichele said he hoped to ease the devastation felt by mourners by stressing that God shared the pain of Chad’s death.

“God did not will that,” Eichele said. “But he certainly enters our pain in that situation and walks with us, in that he lost his son in a very violent death.”

Miller said the slain youth’s parents, Scott and Jackie Hubbard, spent the day talking to friends and looking through old photographs of their son, the eldest of their four children.

They found a poem Chad wrote to his mother several years ago: “You are the moon that sits in the sky, as you are the twinkle in my eye. You are the sun that sets in the west. You are my mom and you are the best.”

Times staff writer Dwayne Bray and Times correspondents Julie Fields and James Maiella Jr. contributed to this story.

How to Help Kids Cope

Children may show a variety of reactions to traumatic incidents such as the loss of a classmate, according to psychologist Pat Madden of the Simi Valley Unified School District. Here are some of her suggestions for parents.

* Relax: Do not worry if a child behaves in a highly emotional manner. This is a normal reaction.

* Listen: Let children talk about their feelings as often as possible.

* Don’t rush: If a child does not want to talk, wait awhile and then again offer a listening ear. “ ‘I don’t want to talk’ usually means, ‘I want to talk but I can’t right now,’ ” Madden said.

* Be flexible: Understand that emotions will ebb and flow. Inconsistency may indicate that the child is trying to resolve powerful or conflicting feelings in a manageable way, Madden said.

* Be optimistic: Do not let children’s overly negative views of the world go unchallenged. If a child believes that the world has gone awry and only bad things seem to happen, gently point out the good things.

FYI

Officials of the Simi Valley Unified School District are holding a special meeting at 7:30 tonight at Sinaloa Junior High School, 601 Royal Ave., to meet with parents to discuss school safety. Services for Chad Hubbard will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at Simi Covenant Church, 4680 Alamo St., Simi Valley. It will be followed by a graveside service at Assumption Cemetery, 1380 Fitzgerald Road, Simi Valley.