Police to Review Oxnard Schools’ Safety Plans

The tragedy in Littleton, Colo., has prompted the Oxnard Police Department to start organizing a yearlong project of reviewing safety plans at that city’s three dozen schools.

The schools will give a copy of their security plans to the Police Department’s SWAT team, whose members will study and critique them to make sure each campus is prepared for what Sgt. Tom Chronister described as the worst-case scenario.

“I don’t know if you can control mass hysteria, but if the crazed gunman comes, the SWAT team needs to have reviewed these plans,” Chronister said. “You never think this is going to happen, but they probably thought that in Littleton.”

At Littleton’s Columbine High School, 12 students and a teacher were killed by two armed students. The gunmen had also planted several homemade bombs on campus before taking their own lives.

SWAT officers who responded at Columbine have been criticized for being too slow to enter the school. Law enforcement officials have countered, saying the scene was an impossible situation because of the rampage of students and the number of bombs.

Chronister wants to make sure schools in his city--which he admits have more crime and gang activity than most campuses in the county--are working in sync with officers during emergencies.

“We need to know what law enforcement assumes we are doing,” said Gary Davis, assistant superintendent of educational services for the Oxnard Union High School District.

Where do teachers go during a crisis? Through what door should students flee? Where is the best tactical position for a sharpshooter? These are some of the issues for discussion.

Chronister said the Littleton massacre had served as a harsh lesson about security for all schools and law enforcement agencies. But, he added, the best defense is still prevention.

Hand-held metal detectors are already utilized at Oxnard schools, and monthly meetings are held with students and law enforcement to discuss gangs and crime.

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Santa Paula police have done another fine piece of detective work.

Last week, I wrote that department veteran Sgt. Carlos Juarez spent six months tracking down the prime suspect in a long-unsolved stabbing death. This week, a 30-year-old fresh face takes the credit for identifying a leading suspect in a rape case.

Early in the morning hours of April 12, a young single mother was attacked in her Santa Paula apartment by a stranger who had knocked on her door. Before leaving, the attacker bound the victim with a pair of nylons.

All of this occurred in front of the victim’s two toddlers, police said.

The night of the crime, three-year Officer Michelle Velasco, a Santa Paula native, was on duty.

“I had some brief information. The leads were slim to none, but it didn’t sound like somebody in our area,” she said of the attacker’s description.

Velasco decided to check the register of a motel near the victim’s home. The first guest card she read listed a Florida man who had checked out that afternoon.

After the motel clerk described the guest, Velasco called the Volusia County Sheriff’s Department north of Orlando.

Florida authorities sent an overnight package to Santa Paula containing a picture of the man, Robert Walter Wilkinson, 30, and his rap sheet, which includes a conviction for assault. Tattoos that the Santa Paula victim had described on her attacker matched ones listed on the rap sheet, police said.

Wilkinson, a De Bary, Fla., resident, had been in Ventura County doing construction work at an industrial complex in Oxnard. He had gone to Santa Paula to party with a friend and stayed at a local motel, Velasco learned.

Velasco “beat the bushes and got this information and gave it to investigators in a nice package,” said Santa Paula Police Cmdr. Mark Hanson.

Wilkinson was arrested in Florida on April 22. He remained in a Florida jail Sunday on suspicion of 17 counts of sexual assault. His bail has been set at $750,000.

“I’m really pleased because the citizens don’t have to worry about this one,” Velasco said.

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Simi Valley police are warning restaurant owners to beware of a polite robber on the loose.

The man is believed to have hit a number of San Fernando Valley eateries, including Carrows, Olive Garden and Black Angus. He showed up recently at El Torito on Erringer Road in Simi Valley--his second El Torito, cops believe, in the string of holdups.

In the Simi case, as in the others, the robber greets the manager with a handshake and then kindly says he’s there to rob the place. He then flashes a handgun tucked in his waistband and requests a bag of cash--no coins, please.

“Witnesses state the suspect was well-groomed, articulate and polite,” noted Simi Police Det. Jay Carrott.

The robber tells the manager that if they give him any trouble, several armed accomplices waiting in the parking lot will come in shooting.

Robber and manager then stroll together to the business office, where money from a safe is loaded into a bag. The robber escorts the manager back to the entrance of the restaurant before walking away.

The man is described as Latino, about 20 years old, 5 feet 9 and 180 pounds, with dark hair and light skin. In some of the robberies he has worn gloves and a dark leather jacket.

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Holly J. Wolcott can be reached by e-mail at holly.wolcott@latimes.com.