Youth Shot Near High School : Crime: Student, 18, is wounded after an attempted carjacking is thwarted. Gunshots startle the campus, and a teacher chases one of the two assailants.

A Chatsworth High School senior was shot in the leg near campus Monday afternoon in a failed carjacking attempt by three teen-agers, police said.

The student, Anthony Perea, 18, was shot once in the left leg and is expected to recover from his injuries. He was treated and released from West Valley Hospital, said Lt. Kyle Jackson of the LAPD’s Devonshire Division.

A teacher chased one of the assailants but failed to capture him.

Perea was sitting in a friend’s car in the 20800 block of Vintage Street just after 1 p.m., said Jackson, waiting for the car’s owner to get out of class and give him a ride home. Two youths, about 16 or 17, armed with a handgun, ordered Perea out of the car, took the keys and jumped in, but could not start the car, Jackson said.

The new Honda required a security chip--part of the car’s anti-theft system--which the owner had, police said.

Perea turned to run away and was shot, Jackson said.

The assailants ran, one west on Vintage Street and the second into an apartment complex at 20810 Vintage Street, police said. Police searched the building door to door but found no suspect.

A third person, waiting nearby in a Volkswagen, drove off as the carjacking failed, witnesses told police.

The sound of the shots echoed throughout the campus and disrupted some classes.

John Apablasa, an English teacher, ran out of his classroom, which faces Vintage Street, and chased the robber he saw running into the apartment complex.

Apablasa called out to the boy to stop, but the youth retorted “No way!” and kept running, the teacher said.

“I chased him, and he turned around and put his hand in his jacket like he had a gun,” said Apablasa. “I said, ‘Forget it’ and let him go.”

Assistant Principal Sharon Smith said she did not know why Perea was out of class at 1 p.m., but said many seniors have shortened class days because they don’t need the extra classes or they have jobs.

Smith said counselors from the Los Angeles Unified School District will be on the campus today to talk to students who ask for counseling.

“We will also have extra police that will surround the school,” she said. “Not so much on campus as around it.”

As sixth period ended, students poured out of their classes and milled around the crime scene.

“I heard the gunshots from class, but I didn’t know what it was,” said 15-year-old Taylor Bay. “Then we came out and saw all the cops.”

“I am a little scared,” Bay said about the shooting. “Especially since I have to walk home today.”

Becky Hayes, 17, said she has learned to live with the crime at her school. “It bothers me a lot, but you get hardened to it, I guess,” she said as she watched investigators comb the street for cartridge casings. “That stuff just happens.”

When Kathy Belville arrived after the 2:25 p.m. bell to pick up her 15-year-old daughter, she was startled to find police cars blocking the street. “I am worried,” she said. “It’s hard when you come to pick up your kid and you see this.”

Belville said it was the second time she had come to pick up her child and found police investigating a shooting near the campus, referring to the shooting of a Chatsworth student last year over a backpack.

“What is going on with this school? Every day it is something new,” said an alarmed Holly Ghelichkani, who came to pick up her sophomore brother. “They should do something about the violence here.”