Police Kill Armed Teenager at High School

As scores of horrified students and teachers watched during their lunch hour, Oxnard SWAT team members fatally shot a teenage gunman Wednesday as he held a female student hostage at Hueneme High School.

Richard Lopez, who did not attend the school, apparently intended to die at the hands of police. He told his hostage, 17-year-old Lorena Gonzalez, that he was distraught over family problems but couldn’t shoot himself because he wanted to go to heaven, the girl’s parents said.

“He picked that spot to die,” said her father, John Ramirez. “Unfortunately, he picked my daughter.”

As the bizarre scene played out, students were terrified, envisioning a scene like the massacre at Colorado’s Columbine High School.

“The guy pointed the gun at us,” said sophomore Michael Garcia, 16. “He pointed it right at me and I ran. I thought I was going to get shot.”

Lopez, who was known among students by the nickname “Midget,” told police during their brief standoff that he was carrying a hand grenade. After his death, members of the Ventura County sheriff’s bomb squad checked his body. No explosives were found.

The incident started before lunch Wednesday when the teenager was ordered off school grounds by an assistant principal, who recognized him from previous incidents, police said.

Returning about 12:50 p.m., Lopez shot twice at a car in the school’s parking lot, hitting it at least once, police said. It was driven by Gonzalez’s cousin, who had just dropped her off at school after having lunch off campus.

Blocking an entryway, Lopez grabbed the girl around the waist, demanded that she come with him and poked his gun in her side.

Police said the unattended entryway, which is closed during most of the school day, was supposed to be monitored during lunch. Principal Roger Rice said the monitor may have run for help after the initial gunshots.

Waving his weapon, Lopez dragged Gonzalez onto a quad packed with as many as 150 students finishing lunch and preparing for afternoon classes. With one arm, he choked her as he held his gun against her head with his other hand.

“I saw him holding her and she looked scared,” said Gloria Kasper, a campus supervisor. “I was just trying to keep the kids calm.”

The girl sobbed as Joe Tinoco, an Oxnard police officer patrolling the school, ordered Lopez to surrender, police said. The city’s SWAT team, which was training nearby, arrived four minutes after Tinoco summoned help.

Many students fled the quad, some hopping perimeter fences.

In a nearby classroom, senior Brenda Cervantez, 18, and eight students huddled under desks with the lights off.

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

The confrontation between officers and Lopez lasted only a few minutes. As he held Gonzalez, he talked to her about a gang he belonged to, her parents said. When he told her he could see a laser beam from an officer’s targeting device trained on his head, he cocked his gun.

At that point, he was shot once by a SWAT officer, police said.

Uninjured but shaken, Gonzalez was taken to the Oxnard Police Department for questioning on what she may have known about the teenager’s motives.

“There does not appear to be any relationship between the suspect and the hostage,” said Oxnard Police Chief Art Lopez. The gunman also did not know the man whose car he targeted.

The teenager was to appear in court Friday on weapons possession charges, a law enforcement source said. He had been convicted on drug charges and recently disappeared from a facility for juvenile offenders in the San Fernando Valley, said the source, who added that the youth was 17.

Chief Lopez credited his officers with “very decisive action in a situation that may have led to a tremendous tragedy.”

Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury praised the officers’ swift action.

“Who knows how serious this incident could have been had the officer not acted so promptly, decisively and appropriately?” he said.

After several hours, Gonzalez was brought home. Her father said it will be some time before she returns to school.

During or shortly after the incident, most of the school’s more than 2,000 students were evacuated. About 60 who witnessed all or parts of it were detained as police took their names.

School officials announced the school would be closed Thursday.

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Times staff writers Fred Alvarez, Tina Dirmann, Timothy Hughes, Daryl Kelley and David Kelly and correspondents Katie Cooper and Gail Davis contributed to this story.