Freedom should prevail over fear and fences

Venice High School dodged a bullet last week -- literally and figuratively.

Ten days ago, an on-campus shooting sent students scrambling, but the bullets didn’t hit anybody. The only injury was to a boy who fell and hurt his wrist as he tried to get out of the line of fire. The suspects, who drove onto the campus through an unlocked gate, sped off.

The next day, school officials tried to get back to normal.

“A little half-sheet of paper was put in all the mailboxes [saying] ‘The student had minor injuries. . . . Feel free to discuss it with your classes,’ ” said Joann Carrabio, an art teacher who had sent the student out of class for being disruptive just before the shooting occurred.

Carrabio didn’t much like the tone of the note.

“Like it’s not a big thing because no one died,” she said.

Police suspect the shooters were gang members and may have argued with the student before firing.

Sounds familiar. In June 2006, a 17-year-old student was shot to death in the faculty parking lot after he fought with a trio of gang members who had trespassed on campus and threatened to rob his younger brother.

That killing -- the first on a Los Angeles Unified campus in a decade -- unhinged the beach community, known for its colorful characters and counterculture atmosphere. Angry parents attended town hall meetings. Students met with counselors. Administrators approved a flurry of safety measures.

Security cameras were installed and a gate was built around the faculty parking lot, with spikes aimed at the street to keep intruders out. But the list of remedies did not include an obvious fix -- a fence to shield the campus from busy Venice Boulevard.

The school is one of the few unfenced campuses in the district. After every crisis, designs are drawn, estimates sought and a community struggles to balance freedom with security. Then, the sense of danger fades and the idea of a fence is dropped.

Now, once again, parents and teachers are asking: Can we wall off danger, and at what cost?

Venice High School has the same gritty, relaxed, live-and-let-live vibe as the community that surrounds it. It also has the same challenges. While many of its students are the children and grandchildren of Venice High alumni, others are poorer newcomers who live in nearby public housing projects.

“I know people who think you’re absolutely crazy to send your kid to Venice High,” said Loren Grossman, whose two sons attended the school. “For others, it’s like Garfield and Roosevelt. . . . ‘My mom went there. My dad went there. It’s safe enough.’ ”

Venice Principal Janice Davis began teaching at the school in 1985. She remembers the fights and gang rivalries that rocked the campus 10 years ago. “A situation like this hurts,” she said of last week’s “unfortunate incident.”

“We were just getting our reputation back again,” she said.

The 29-acre campus is one of the city’s oldest. Its striking Art Deco-style main building has been a landmark for residents and visitors for generations. The school’s open layout -- with parking lots bisecting the campus, a broad front lawn, towering trees and secluded grassy patches -- is a security headache. But it’s also a source of pride.

“We don’t want a prison,” said Grossman, a parent and advocate for disabled children who visits schools throughout the city. Some “look like Sing Sing, with the double doors and the high fences. I certainly don’t feel any safer there.”

To art teacher Carrabio, that notion is dangerously naive. Last week’s shots were fired just outside her classroom, which opens into the visitor parking lot.

“People have an attitude of being in love with some kind of way of life that’s in the past,” she said. “It’s beautiful that the school is open, doesn’t have a big cement wall around it. . . . But that’s not very realistic.”

I visited the campus Wednesday afternoon, one week after the shooting, and spent 45 minutes wandering the campus unnoticed. I could see what people love about the school. It felt stress-free, friendly, not on-guard.

The halls were clean, classroom doors were open. On the front lawn, noisy sea gulls feasted on leftover lunches. Out back, in the senior yard, a boy sat on a table strumming a guitar, a group of girls pelted one another with ice and giggled, and a Latino boy tried to persuade a black classmate to try a cup of horchata, a sweet rice drink.

Count me among the “don’t fence us in” crowd.

A fence blocking the campus from the street might make parents and teachers feel better. But what would it convey to the students inside?

I think of how I feel when I ride through a neighborhood where every home has bars on the windows and even fast-food joints have bullet-proof glass. I know people there are afraid of what’s outside.

A fence in front of Venice High would send the same message, telegraphing a fear that I don’t think students feel inside.

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sandy.banks@latimes.com