Birmingham Students Describe Suspect

As Birmingham High School officials locked gates and increased police presence on campus Thursday, students described the 15-year-old suspected of threatening to kill 75 classmates as small-framed and bullied--traits similar to the Santana High School student who fatally shot two classmates and wounded 13 others earlier this month in San Diego.

Police arrested the 10th-grader at the Van Nuys school on Wednesday and booked him on suspicion of making a terrorist threat. The teen, who is in police custody, made the threats on the Internet, police said, but no guns or bombs were found at his house. He is due in Sylmar Juvenile Court today.

At the school on Wednesday, a 17-year-old junior said the boy, whose name was not released by authorities because he is a juvenile, was often picked on because of his size. But he still had a clique of students he hung out with.

“People made fun of him because of the way he looks,” the junior said.

That description confirmed what Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Terry Hara said about the teen at a Wednesday night news conference. “The subject was very apologetic and said he was mistreated and had nowhere to go,” Hara said.

Since the March 5school shooting in San Diego, local prosecutors have received about half a dozen calls about students threatening to kill their classmates, said Dan Feldstern, deputy Los Angeles district attorney who is assigned to Sylmar Juvenile Hall. Many can’t be prosecuted, he said, because it is difficult to make a case under terrorist threat laws.

The LAPD Criminal Conspiracy Section investigated two other criminal threat charges at schools last year, said Det. Ken Wheeler, who is on the Birmingham High case.

“It’s hard because you get a lot of second and third parties saying things,” Wheeler said. “This was the first one that I am aware of where we’ve actually had one over the Internet with enough information to get the bad guy.”

The key lead in this case came from two sets of parents of other children who notified authorities Monday.

“In Columbine and Santee, no one came forward to say ‘Hey, there’s a threat,”’ said Birmingham Principal Gerald Kleinman. “So catastrophe occurred.”

Since the incident, the school has provided counseling for students and has looked for suspicious objects in students’ possession among other security tactics.

The Los Angeles Unified School District also is responding to increased school threats, spokeswoman Hilda Ramirez said. The district is holding three-day threat assessment training sessions for employees through this month. Beginning next school year, high school freshmen will be required to take a “life skills class,” where they learn anti-bullying methods, among other things.

The Internet chat room, where the youth allegedly posted his threats, was described by some students as the catalyst for further tension and conflict between school cliques. Several postings have instigated fights near the school over the last two weeks, they said.

Kleinman said the administration has not addressed the Web site because he is concerned that doing so would attract more students to it.

“We don’t have enough information on the Web site,” he said. “I have not said anything about the Web site nor do I think I should. The issue is the threat and safety of the students.”

Some students said they are afraid to go to school Monday--the day the youth being charged allegedly said he would shoot and bomb his classmates before the lunch hour.

“[The threat] was a bad joke,” said one student.