2 Students Held in Wake of Threats

Almost 2,000 students missed classes at Aliso Niguel High School in the wake of e-mails warning that a student planned to shoot up the campus Monday, the same day authorities announced the arrests of two teens on suspicion of making terrorist threats involving two schools.

Rumors and e-mails had swept part of south Orange County over the weekend, and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department received more than 100 e-mails from students and 500 phone calls from worried parents alerting officers of the supposed plan at Aliso Niguel.

Sheriff’s investigators said a 15-year-old boy, until recently a student at Aliso Niguel High, was arrested Saturday, the morning after investigators began looking into the warnings from parents and students. The student withdrew from school a month ago, according to Capistrano Unified School District spokeswoman Julie Jennings.

In a separate incident, a 14-year-old Capistrano Valley High School student from Mission Viejo was arrested Monday about 9 a.m. on that campus after students told teachers the youth had threatened to kill another student. Authorities later also found a pistol at the boy’s home, according to Investigator Steve Doan.

“Whether or not we averted a tragedy, we’ll never know,” Doan said. “When it appears that an individual has the capability to carry out their threats, then we take these things very seriously. It did create quite a stir.”

Attendance wasn’t affected at Capistrano, but at Aliso Niguel, school officials permitted parents to keep their children off campus Monday. Many students stayed home after hearing from friends or friends of friends who hadn’t gone to school.

Aliso Niguel Assistant Vice Principal John Pehrson said about 850 students came to campus and about 1,900 stayed home. The school serves 2,750 students from the Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel areas.

Sheriff’s deputies patrolled the Aliso Niguel campus and school officials also stayed alert, zipping around the buildings in golf carts to keep watch. If students strayed beyond the center of campus, a golf cart would race up to collect the students and bring them back. Some students who showed up for classes pulled out cell phones to alert parents.

“It made us upset to think [of] the reputation of our school getting marred by some student making threats,” said Elizabeth Luppi, 17, editor of the school newspaper, the Growling Wolverine. “Maybe that person just wanted the day off, but it upset a lot of students.”

Aliso Niguel officials said the rumors of a violent threat trickled down from an emergency-services dispatcher at the school district who took a call from a teenager reporting she had heard a male student threaten to “shoot up the school Monday.”

Pehrson lauded the good communication among students, parents and law-enforcement officials, although he said the administration was frustrated that so many kids missed school.

For the students who did attend school, it was a day of leisure, with teachers letting students watch movies, play games or have informal conversations about current events instead of teaching lessons that would leave absent kids behind.

“The reason so many kids aren’t here is that they’re using it as a day to slack off,” said Jamie Gunter, 17, of Aliso Viejo. “It’s a ditch day. But they are so stupid to ditch today because it’s been so fun. In English class we went out and played volleyball.”

Aliso Niguel administrators handed out a letter to parents assuring them the district hoped to “ease any worry about the safety of your child while he or she is at school.” The letter also added: “We expect to see all students return to school tomorrow.”