Suspect, 16, Shot in Scuffle With School Official

A 16-year-old burglary suspect was critically wounded after a physical altercation with a gun-toting official at the campus of exclusive Harvard-Westlake School early Saturday, police said.

Police say the official brought the gun from his home to investigate a suspected break-in. The gun discharged during a scuffle with the youth, who was apparently unarmed.

Police declined to say who pulled the trigger, or whether the shooting was intentional. The official, who police refused to identify, was questioned and released. .

The investigation forced cancellation of Preliminary Scholastic Assessment Tests (PSAT) for several hundred students because the building where the testing was to take place was roped off with yellow police tape.

Students were left to linger on campus until their parents could pick them up.

The upscale private high school on Coldwater Canyon Avenue, which charges $12,500 per year for tuition, is home to one of the premier science departments in the nation--the $13-million Munger Science Center--as well as numerous math and computer classrooms such as the one in which Saturday’s shooting took place.

In recent months, thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment has been stolen from the campus in a series of break-ins, prompting school authorities to beef up security.

Michael Millman, whose son attends the school, was indignant about the shooting.

“A firearm on this campus is inappropriate under any circumstances,” Millman said. “Does the principal of Crenshaw High School bring a firearm to school?

“Let them take the computer,” he added. “An administrator is not qualified to take the law into his own hands.”

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The youth shot in Saturday’s incident was airlifted to Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills where he underwent several hours of surgery, and was afterward reported to be in critical condition, a hospital spokeswoman said. The bullet entered his lower back, a Los Angeles City Fire Department spokesman said.

The youth is not a student at Harvard-Westlake, said school Principal Thomas Hudnut. He is considered a burglary suspect, but no charges have been filed, according to Det. Mike Coffey of the Los Angeles Police Department’s North Hollywood Division. The district attorney is expected to review the case to determine if charges are warranted, he said.

The incident began about 6:30 a.m. when neighbors of the school called the 54-year-old campus official, who lives nearby, to report “loud banging and crashing sounds” coming from the school’s Chalmers Hall, Coffey said.

The neighbors thought the noise might be construction work, but the school official, suspecting a break-in, armed himself with a semiautomatic handgun and went to investigate.

He found a metal back door to Chalmers Hall pried open. Inside, he found that a thick wooden door to a third-floor computer classroom had also been broken open.

“The door had been smashed out,” said Coffey. “He went in and heard footsteps and was confronted by the burglar.”

The two tussled, he said. It’s not clear what preceded the single shot that wounded the youth, who was apparently not armed, Coffey said.

Hudnut said witnesses reported that other suspects were running from the school at about the same time.

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Police impounded a car parked on the street about a block north of the school that may have been connected to the break-in.

Although the school has night security guards, none was present during the incident, Coffey said. Hudnut said the school hires armed guards, and that security has been increased this year since the computer thefts.

Asked whether police or security were called by the Harvard-Westlake official, Hudnut declined to comment. Hudnut would say only that a school employee was involved in the shooting. Coffey identified the school official as “a superintendent or director of facilities.”

Derek O’Reilly-Jones, 16, of Hancock Park, an 11th-grader, said he was among about 400 10th- and 11th-grade students who arrived at the campus before 7:30 a.m. to take the PSAT test scheduled for 8 a.m. Police had cordoned off large sections of the campus.

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About 30 minutes after students arrived, “We were all herded into the gymnasium and asked that we keep quiet, that announcements would be made as soon as information was available,” he said.

About 8:45 a.m., according to O’Reilly-Jones, school officials “announced there had been some police activity and that the computer thieves had been apprehended.” He said students learned by word of mouth that an alleged thief had been shot.

When officials announced that the tests had been canceled, “There was a great celebration,” O’Reilly-Jones said, although some students worried that their chances were diminished for the National Merit Scholarship program.

Other students said they had been told the test will be rescheduled for juniors at the high school, but that sophomores, who were taking the test for practice only, would have to wait until next year. Otherwise, all was normal at the school on Saturday. A football game took place as scheduled, and by 11 a.m. members of the cross-country team had gathered for a meet.

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Many students said they were not surprised by the incident since there have been several recent burglaries, including one in which computers were taken from a dean’s office. Hudnut said about $50,000 worth of computer equipment was taken in one of the burglaries.

Leovy is a correspondent. Willman is a staff writer.