Student Badly Wounded in Shooting Near Campus

A high school student from North Hills was severely wounded by gunfire Thursday during a drive-by attack across the street from the campus, authorities said.

The incident about 10:30 a.m. was the second shooting of a Monroe High School student in eight months. In November, a 15-year-old was killed in a nighttime drive-by shooting while walking home from a football game.

The youth wounded in Thursday’s shooting, Jose Gonzalez, 17, was standing near a bus bench at Nordhoff Street and Haskell Avenue when a blue car approached, police said. Words reportedly were exchanged before someone in the car opened fire.

Gonzalez was struck several times in the upper body. He was taken to Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, where he was listed in critical condition late Thursday after undergoing surgery.

Investigators said they believed the incident was gang-related but discounted any link to last November’s shooting.

“I think they specifically shot at this guy,” said Richard Page, assistant chief of the Los Angeles Unified School District Police Department.

School administrators said Gonzalez, a sophomore, transferred to Monroe from his home school, Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley, earlier this year.

Gonzalez left Poly as an “opportunity transfer,” in which students change schools either to address disciplinary problems, to protect their safety or to help them adjust socially.

Monroe and Poly administrators would not give the reason for Gonzalez’s transfer, citing confidentiality rules. But at least one Monroe administrator had positive things to say about the 10th-grader.

“The dean knew of this individual and spoke very highly of him,” said P.J. Morris, supervisor of the gang unit at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Devonshire Division.

Los Angeles school police said that despite the two shootings, Monroe has no more violence than other Los Angeles district high schools. Still, an additional foot patrol officer will be assigned in the coming week, and a police car has been scheduled to patrol the area around the school.

Principal Joan Elam declared the campus safe and said that incidents outside the school gates are often beyond administrators’ control.

Students had varying opinions about safety on and off the campus.

“I don’t feel protected,” said freshman Adriana Perez, 14. “If something like that happened right now, I wouldn’t know what to do.”

Senior Aushton Castillo said he felt little danger. “I feel safe because nothing is going to happen to me. I guess [Gonzales] was caught at the wrong place at the wrong time.”