Shooting Was Preventable, Official Says

A gang shooting that seriously injured a student near San Fernando High School could have been prevented if security gates restricting pedestrian access to the campus had been locked, a top official said Friday.

Principal Philip Saldivar said that over the school’s protests, the city of Los Angeles ordered the gates taken down last May--leaving the campus more vulnerable to violence like the attack on a 17-year-old student outside the school’s day-care center Thursday after school.

Neighbors won the battle with the school, contending the gates cut off their route to a bus stop, making commuting inconvenient, and posed a danger in an emergency.

Los Angeles police investigators arrested three youths in connection with the shooting. The 16-year-old suspects had been expelled from San Fernando High, police said.

The victim was hospitalized Friday in serious condition, with stable vital signs. He was awake and alert, according to a Providence Holy Cross Medical Center spokeswoman.

“The safety of a school should be a higher priority than the violation of a street ordinance,” Saldivar said. “I think this could have been prevented by just knowing there’s a barrier.”

Saldivar’s opinion was sharply contradicted by neighbors and politicians.

State Sen. Richard Alarcon, a former Los Angeles city councilman who heard complaints about the gates from residents last year, strongly objected to Saldivar’s statements.

“I’m shocked that anyone would take this opportunity to make a political statement,” he said. “Clearly he needs more security at the school, but there are many complex issues as to why that young man was shot. To blame it on the gate is ridiculous.”

Alarcon said he supports the city Department of Transportation’s decision last year to remove the gates. He said the school failed to follow proper procedures when the gates were installed.

For more than a decade, vehicular access to the 4,500-student campus has been blocked by a gate stretching across Chamberlain Street, which was kept locked during school hours. In early 1998, the school erected gates to block pedestrians as well--making the street, in effect, an extension of the campus.

More than 100 neighbors signed a petition objecting to the sidewalk gates across Chamberlain Street last year, many protesting lack of notice.

Several residents said they did not think the removal of the gates contributed to the shooting.

“I like it the way it is,” said Ramon Medrano, 64.

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Investigators believe the motive for the shooting may have been retaliation after a fight the gang members and victim had days before, Lt. Rick Papke of the LAPD Foothill Division said. Investigators do not believe the victim was in a gang, he said.

Last month, a teenager driving a stolen car barreled onto campus through the Chamberlain Street gate, which had been left open for trucks that were leaving a carnival at the school.

The car drove onto an athletic field full of students, striking a 16-year-old girl and injuring her slightly. Saldivar said that had a neighbor’s child been injured neighbors may have felt differently about the gate issue.

“They would be here talking to me, asking why I can’t close the campus down.”

Manzano is a Times staff writer; Fox is a correspondent.