Gardena High Security Criticized

Irate parents criticized security procedures at Gardena High School after a campus shooting Wednesday that wounded two students.

Three suspects remained at large Thursday in the shooting of 16-year-old Stephanie Alonso and an unidentified 19-year-old male student. The attackers approached them on campus, demanded money and then shot them. The male student was later released from the hospital, and authorities said Alonso’s wounds were not life-threatening. The complaints about campus safety were spurred by both the shooting and a subsequent lockdown, during which police searched the 25-acre campus classroom by classroom for the attackers.

Some of the school’s 2,300 students were released within minutes of the afternoon shooting, but about 500 were confined to classrooms for up to five hours.

When the group of parents who had gathered outside the school Wednesday night became angry, officials announced that the remaining students would be bused to nearby Peary Middle School and released.

Some of those parents returned Thursday morning to voice their concerns in a hastily arranged series of meetings with school officials.

“I’m really mad at the school for not providing better security,” said Mary Kohatsu, who said her daughter Dena is scheduled to graduate in June. “They really need to do something different.”

Lapses in campus security were evident both during and after the lockdown. At least one teacher was spotted sneaking students around a locked gate Wednesday.

On Thursday, a group of parents at the school complained when a pizza delivery man, unchallenged, handed a stack of boxes through a classroom window within sight of several police cruisers stationed in front of the campus.

Nearby, a student rolled and lighted a fat marijuana cigarette.

Paul Cole, a campus aide, said he and nine other such aides patrol the school. But their limited hours mean that, at times, only one or two of them are on duty, he said.

Some parents said they were disturbed by the way the lockdown itself was conducted.

“I’m going to teach my baby to jump the fence next time something like this happens,” said Elnora Oseguera, who said her asthmatic son was held until nearly 10 p.m.

Another parent, Wanda Hardie, said she left her job in East Los Angeles after hearing about the shooting and arrived at the school by 5 p.m., but wasn’t able to pick up her twin daughters until nearly 10 p.m.

“There’s no reason to bus 200 students to another school like that,” she said. “There was no communication with parents, no command post for people to go to for information.”

School officials said the campus’ emergency procedures were superseded when the Los Angeles Police Department took command of the crime scene.

“Our normal procedure is to reunite parents with their children as soon as possible,” said Kevin J. Baker, a district spokesman. “The decision to bus students to another location happened after the LAPD took charge of the command center.”

Police officials defended their handling of the incident.

“There were a multitude of agencies involved, but there was not a chaotic scene at the location. It was completely controlled,” said Randy Brooks, an LAPD spokesman.

“There’s an understandable level of frustration when things aren’t done exactly the way people want, but we made it safe for everybody,” Brooks said.

The high school is in a tiny piece of the city of Los Angeles that is almost entirely surrounded by Gardena.

The campus is policed jointly by the LAPD, Gardena Police Department and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Police, who have made no arrests in the shooting, said the investigation was continuing.

Although police had said Wednesday that the suspects were two current and one former student, they refused Thursday to confirm that.