3 Arrested After Threats at Dana Hills High

Three students at Dana Hills High School were arrested Friday on suspicion of making terrorist threats in connection with two separate incidents that came just hours after the school shooting in El Cajon.

Police allege that two girls ages 14 and 15 wrote a “hit list” with names of 14 students and posted it in the girls locker room at the Dana Point school. Students discovered the list Thursday afternoon and alerted authorities.

In the second incident, police arrested a 14-year-old boy for allegedly sending a message by school computer threatening the student body. A source close to the investigation said the message vowed that “all will die.”

Authorities said the girls admitted their list was a hoax but have released little information about the computer threat.

All three are being held at Orange County Juvenile Hall.

“We want to remind people there is zero tolerance for this kind of behavior,” said Orange County sheriff’s spokesman Steve Doan.

News of the hit list spread Thursday night in chat rooms and by word of mouth, according to Capistrano Unified School District officials. Nerves were further frayed Friday morning when students arrived at school to see sheriff’s deputies investigating a false bomb threat and the computer message.

Senior Travis Wannlund said that when he was walking to his first-period class shortly after 8 a.m. he had to fight against a stream of students headed for the exit.

“That’s when I knew that people were freaked out,” he said.

The incidents came after a student Thursday opened fire at Granite Hills High School in El Cajon, injuring five people. On March 5, two students were shot to death at Santana High School in Santee.

“I think we’re still having a backlash from the Santee shooting, not just the El Cajon shooting,” said Richard Johnson, executive director of secondary operational services.

The district has established a Web site (www.capousd.k12.ca.us) to address rumors.

Also on Friday, a bomb threat scribbled on a note and taped to a door at Bolsa Grande High School in Garden Grove forced the evacuation of 1,500 students.

The same day, authorities arrested two 13-year-old boys accused of penning a note that threatened to blow up Garden Grove’s Dr. Leroy L. Doig Intermediate School the day before.

Friday’s bomb threat at the high school was discovered about 8:40 a.m. Authorities spent almost three hours conducting a room-by-room search of the campus and found no explosive devices, said Garden Grove Police Capt. Dave Abrecht. The students were allowed back into their classrooms by about 1 p.m.

It was the latest in a spate of four similar threats that began last week, authorities said.

“Even though there was no bomb, it could land someone in jail or expelled from school,” Abrecht said. “If somebody makes a threat to blow up a school or kill somebody, if we are able to identify them, we will arrest them, and they will most likely go to Juvenile Hall and face criminal charges.”

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Times staff writers Jack Leonard and Tina Borgatta contributed to this report.