School Incidents Lead to Arrests of 3 Teens

One week after the FBI named this the third-safest big city in the country, a Saugus High School student was arrested for allegedly raping a classmate, and two other boys were detained after they threatened to harm their peers, police said.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and school officials said the close timing of the incidents, which all occurred during school hours Wednesday, was a coincidence. Still, it was a clear sign that despite the city’s relatively low crime rate, Santa Clarita is not immune to the type of teenage violence seen elsewhere in the country recently.

In one incident, deputies from the Santa Clarita Sheriff’s Station said, a 13-year-old at Arroyo Seco Junior High School in Valencia told classmates that he would soon be as infamous as Kipland Kinkel, the 15-year-old Springfield, Ore., student who allegedly killed his parents, then opened fire in a school cafeteria May 21, leaving two students dead and 22 injured.

“[The Arroyo Seco student] made some pretty specific threats about other students,” said Lt. Tim Peters. “We know that we can’t just brush off these threats. If you do, you can have some problems.”

Santa Clarita Mayor Jan Heidt agreed. “I think we would be wrong to think we are somehow immune,” said Heidt. “This is pretty much a mirror of what we’ve seen throughout the country.

Although on-campus violence is rare in Santa Clarita, both police and school officials say that the recent spate of deadly incidents in other parts of the nation has made them more vigilant when it comes to dealing with threats from students.

Arroyo Seco Principal Jacque Snyder said that several students heard the youngster make threatening remarks and reported them to school administrators. The school conducted its own investigation and, in accordance with state law, reported the threats to sheriff’s deputies, who took the boy into custody.

“It was very frightening to the kids who heard it,” Snyder said. “We are trying to teach our students to be proactive in these situations, so we’re glad they came forward to tell us what they’d heard.”

In the second incident, an eighth-grader at La Mesa Junior High School in Canyon Country, also 13, allegedly threatened fellow students and was also detained at school Wednesday by sheriff’s deputies.

Unlike circumstances in the Oregon incident, Peters said, neither boy was armed or had access to guns. “We don’t consider them to be a threat at this time,” said Peters, who added that both boys were released to their parents.

However, Peters said that the Sheriff’s Department would ask the district attorney to file charges against the boys for making terrorist threats.

Deputies said the 16-year-old suspect in the rape case was a known gang member who was on probation for crimes that were not sex-related. He was being held Thursday at Sylmar Juvenile Hall.

The alleged victim was a 15-year-old freshman, school officials said.

The alleged attack took place around 10:45 a.m. Wednesday during a graphic arts class at Saugus High. The suspect allegedly forced the girl into a storage room adjacent to the school’s photographic dark room and raped her. The girl reported the attack to school officials and was taken to a local hospital for treatment.

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Saugus Principal Cheryl Brown said that to her knowledge, this was the first rape ever reported on a Santa Clarita school campus.

“Right now, we’re all very saddened by this and very concerned about the young lady,” Brown said. “Our kids are all very well aware of things that are happening around the nation. It’s not that they believe things like that can’t happen here, but when it does it makes a big impact.”

Teachers at the school were informed about the incident and instructed to lead discussions if students wanted to talk. Counselors and school psychologists were also available to meet with students who might no longer feel safe on campus, she said.

The names of the suspect in the rape case and the two boys who allegedly made the threats were not released because they are juveniles. All have been suspended from school and are likely to be expelled, school officials said.