Monroe Student Hurt in Drive-By Shooting

A Monroe High School student was in critical condition Thursday after being shot several times in the upper body in a drive-by shooting across the street from the campus, authorities said.

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

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

Gonzalez was struck several times. 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. “There’s very little information as far as what was said.”

School district administrators said that Gonzalez, a sophomore, transferred to Monroe from his home school, Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley, earlier this year after a short stint at Kennedy High School in Granada Hills.

Gonzalez left Poly as an “opportunity transfer” in which students change schools because there have been disciplinary problems, or to protect their safety or 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, who arrived at the North Hills campus in November.

“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, which is investigating the incident.

Los Angeles school police said that despite the two shootings, Monroe has no more violence than other LAUSD high schools.

Still, school officers stepped up patrols at Monroe in the wake of Thursday’s shooting. An additional foot-beat officer will be added in the coming week, and a police car has been assigned 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.

“We’ve got a safe haven here and we’ve worked to maintain that on a daily basis,” Elam said. “It’s something we work for every day, to have a safe campus. We need to reassure the staff, students and community that we have a safe school.”

Elam said a letter was sent home with students Thursday describing the incident and giving parents a school phone number to call if they have questions.

Despite the assurances, students had mixed sentiments about safety on and off the campus. “I don’t feel protected,” said freshman Adriana Perez, 14, as she waited for a ride home in front of the school. “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, but I guess he was caught at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Castillo said of Gonzalez. “I don’t think violence should be brought around the school.”