Scary Reminder of Columbine

Brenda Cervantez’s casual rainy-day lunch ended with a flashback scene straight from the horrors of Columbine.

As the Hueneme High senior was returning to class Wednesday, she glanced out the window to see students and teachers rushing frantically from the school’s central quad.

“Get back, get in class,” a schoolyard supervisor yelled. “And lock the doors.” On direction, the students pushed their desks together and huddled underneath. Someone shut off the lights.

That is when the gun went off, and they heard a girl scream.

“We just sat there, scared,” Cervantez said. “The teacher told us if we were religious we should pray. And if we weren’t we should start counting our lucky stars.”

Cervantez, 18, and her stepsister, 17-year-old Jennifer Pritchett, hugged.

“We talked about Columbine,” she said. “And that’s when it really hit me. I just started shaking, I was just in shock.”

As scores of horrified students and teachers watched, Oxnard SWAT team members fatally shot a 17-year-old Wednesday as he held a gun to the head of student Lorena Gonzalez.

The teenager was identified late Wednesday as Richard Lopez. Students said he was nicknamed “Midget” and was a member of an Oxnard gang. One source said he was not a student and had escaped from a juvenile facility where he was being held on a gun possession charge.

Reaction to the fatal shooting ranged from surprise to disbelief.

“Oxnard is not the kind of place where I expect this to happen. I know we have gangs, and we’ve had several shootings lately,” said County Supervisor John Flynn, a 42-year Oxnard resident. “But, gosh, I used to teach down at the school next to Hueneme High. And it’s a shocker for me.

“That’s a working-class area, but it’s safe,” he said. “I walk in that area at night. This is something you don’t expect.”

The fatal shooting was apparently the first by a police officer on a Ventura County campus for at least three decades, if ever, authorities said.

But school violence has become increasingly common at local campuses, where bomb threats, stabbings and shootings have occurred with disturbing frequency.

In 1998, two Rio Mesa High School students were stabbed and beaten during a two-hour lunchtime melee involving a gang member who had sneaked on campus. In 1997, a 15-year-old Buena High School student was stabbed in the back and his 17-year-old classmate severely beaten while on a “power walk” as part of a physical education exercise.

In 1994, Chad Patrick Hubbard, a ninth-grader at Valley View Junior High School in Simi Valley, was stabbed to death by a 13-year-old with a pocketknife in an open-air hallway at the school. And in 1989, a Filipino gang member killed a member of a rival Latino gang in the parking lot of Channel Islands High School in Oxnard.

Authorities have beefed up security, with police officers routinely posted at high schools. An officer was on campus at Hueneme High on Wednesday, and his emergency call had the Oxnard SWAT team--on its way to a training exercise--at the school within minutes.

School officials said the campus generally is safe. Above the front office door is a sign that warns that all visitors can be screened for weapons with a metal detector.

But police said Wednesday night that the school’s front gate was open and unguarded when the armed teenager entered the campus. A security officer usually stands guard during the lunch hour, they said.

One teacher representative said the campus could be more secure.

“No one needs to ever get used to something like this,” said Jan Henry, president of the Oxnard Federation of Teachers and a teacher at Frontier High School in Camarillo. “I hope we can make things more secure. There is nothing to keep someone from jumping the fence, and the only people who wear identification are the security guards.”

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Students said former students routinely come onto campus to see old friends.

“It’s so easy to get on campus it’s not even funny,” said Shawn O’Hare, 16, a junior. “People that have graduated come on campus like it’s nothing. It’s very open here.”

The Hueneme campus is secured by medium-height fences, and visitors are required to enter through the school’s office. But students said former students often find other ways onto the campus.

Former school board member Jean Daily-Underwood said Hueneme High does a good job on safety.

“It’s like anything else: If you want good security, it takes a lot of money,” she said. “It’s a tragedy. I think Hueneme does a good job and the school is in better shape than a lot of other schools. Every year they hiked up security. The teachers all wear identification. There are security cameras on the roof.”

Jim Nielsen, principal of Oxnard High School, said what happened at Hueneme could happen at any campus.

“They’ve done a great job on security,” he said. “I had a similar situation when I was principal of Channel Islands High School. A couple of real-looking fake bombs were placed on the stairwell. It was a learning experience for us.”

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For all the talk of security, students were feeling anything but safe Wednesday afternoon.

Sophomore Amy Kragseth was about 10 feet away when the gunman abducted Gonzalez.

“That’s the scariest thing I’ve ever been though,” said Amy, who sought safety in a nearby classroom. “I just felt like throwing up. I was dizzy.”

Melody Fallon, 17, said she was sitting at tables near the cafeteria talking with friends when a supervisor came running.

“All of the sudden I heard someone yell, ‘He’s got a gun!’ ” she said. “Then some of the lunch supervisors grabbed us and told us to get into the cafeteria building. They were, like, directing traffic.”

In the cafeteria with about 150 other students, she heard a shot a few minutes after the commotion started.

“I saw some cop, a woman, running with a gun in her hand,” she said. “They had us stay in there for about 20 minutes and then they told us to go home.”

Freshman Toria Menendez was in the cafeteria when teachers suddenly began telling students to sit down or protect themselves in the corners.

She huddled against the wall. When word spread that a man had a gun outside, all she could think about was getting off campus.

“I was shaking and my stomach was hurting,” she said. “I was expecting something like this to happen already--ever since the Columbine thing happened, it’s always been in my mind.”

The students were allowed out through the back doors about half an hour later. Toria and her friends raced across Bard Road to her grandmother’s house and soon were joined by parents anxious to find their children.

“The house was full of people wanting to use the phone,” said Hermelinda Alvara, Menendez’s grandmother.

“Students, people looking for their children, it was so sad. I can still feel it.”

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Times staff writer David Kelly and correspondent Gail Davis contributed to this story.

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Police kill armed teenager. A1