3 Youths Cited in Blaze at Elementary School

Three youths were cited Saturday in connection with an early morning fire at Dos Caminos Elementary School.

The boys, ages 10 to 13, are suspected of cutting through a locked gate and then using gasoline to ignite the fire about 1 a.m. Saturday near the school office, authorities said.

An unidentified witness called 911 after he saw four boys at the school, said Sgt. Larry Kelley of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department. When the witness returned, he saw the boys standing around 4-foot-high flames burning against the wall of the school, Kelley said.

The boys ran, but the witness chased and apprehended three of them, Kelley said. Sheriff’s deputies later caught the fourth boy.

“This was all handled so efficiently due to such a cooperative batch of neighbors,” said Shirley Carpenter, superintendent of the Pleasant Valley School District. “They alerted 911, handled everything quickly and kept it from turning into something major.”

One of the boys is from Dos Caminos Elementary School, Carpenter said. The other three are from schools in the Pleasant Valley District.

Sheriff’s deputies cited three of the boys on suspicion of arson. All were released to the custody of their parents.

Neither Kelley nor Carpenter knew what the boys were doing out at that hour.

Mayor Charlotte Craven said she also wondered why the children were on the streets so late.

“The fast answer is that you wonder where the parents were,” Craven said. “On the other hand, once you’re asleep and your kids get up and leave, they can do anything from toilet-papering to more serious things. And you don’t even know about it until you’re called.”

In any case, Craven said, “We need to get to the root of the problem and get back to the idea of personal responsibility.”

Both the sheriff’s and fire department called Principal Gerry Hamor at 1:15 a.m. Saturday. By 1:30, Hamor was at the school, meeting with authorities and parents.

“The parents have been very cooperative and want the best for their kids, and so do we,” Carpenter said. “These are not kids we have had any difficulty with. To our knowledge there hasn’t been anything that has occurred that they’d be reacting to.”

Parents and children met with the principal at 7 a.m. to scrub soot from the wall, Carpenter said. The area will be repainted once the weekend storm passes.

Carpenter said she will work with the sheriff’s and fire departments and parents next week to determine the best way to deal with the situation.

“They need to realize how serious something like this could be,” she said.