Suspect, 15, Had Made Repeated Threats Before Attack Near San Diego

SANTEE, Calif. —  Carrying a black revolver and wearing an enigmatic smile, a diminutive 15-year-old boy opened fire on the campus of a suburban San Diego high school Monday morning, killing two students and injuring 13 other people.

Authorities said Charles Andrew Williams was fulfilling months of threats that most of his friends at Santana High School thought were a joke.

Williams terrorized the school, firing randomly inside a bathroom and around a campus courtyard, authorities said. He reloaded his eight-shot pistol at least three times, firing more than 30 shots that sent students, teachers and staff members diving and scrambling for cover.

It was as if, sophomore Heather Noble said, someone had sprayed water on a line of ants. “People were running all over the place. That is what it looked like . . . ants.”

Finally cornered in the restroom where the shooting began, the slight boy known as Andy surrendered meekly, just minutes after he fired his first shot, officials said. “It’s only me,” he told sheriff’s deputies, who had been concerned that there might be a second gunman.

The pop and echo of gunfire had barely faded from the school’s hallways when a familiar portrait began to emerge: Williams was a disaffected and unhappy boy, frequently taunted by his peers, classmates said. He told other teenagers and an adult many times--as recently as last weekend--that he was prepared to go on a shooting rampage on the campus where he was in the ninth grade.

Even when concerned friends frisked him for weapons before school Monday, Williams laughed off his murderous threats, and mostly so did they.

Killed in the shooting were Bryan Zuckor, 14, and Randy Gordon, 17. The wounded students were identified as Barry Gibson, Scott Marshall, Travis Tate-Gallegos, Karla Leyva, Trevor Edwards, Melisa McNulty, Raymond Serrato, Heather Cruz, James Jackson, Triston Salladay and Matthew Heier. Two adults, security guard Pete Ruiz and special education student teacher Tim Estes, were also wounded.

San Diego County Dist. Atty. Paul Pfingst said he expects that Williams will be arraigned Wednesday on multiple charges, of murder and assault with a deadly weapon. He will automatically be tried as an adult under Proposition 21, the state initiative approved by voters last year that makes it easier for teenagers to be prosecuted as adults.

If he is convicted, Pfingst predicted, the youth could be sentenced to “hundreds of years” in prison.

San Diego County sheriff’s homicide Lt. Jerry Lewis said that after Williams shot two students in a boys bathroom, he opened the door and “started shooting randomly at anyone who passed by. . . . The suspect was mad. We don’t know if he was mad for any particular reason. He was an angry young man. We don’t know at who or at what.”

At First, It Might Have Been a Joke

The shooting began during a break between the first and second class periods on the 1,900-student campus. During the 15-minute break most students streamed to new classes, while others arrived for the start of their school day.

The strange popping sounds that came from the boys bathroom at first went unidentified. When a few students said someone might have a gun, many others thought it was a joke. But as others began to fall and blood flowed onto the concrete quad, the shooting became too real.

One bloodied student lay curled in the fetal position near the center of the quad. Then security officer Ruiz appeared in the bathroom doorway, where he was shot in the back, collapsing forward. Teenagers shrieked and ran in every direction as adults tried to get some sense of what was happening.

“People were tripping over tree trunks, throwing backpacks and screaming, running,” sophomore Noble said. “There were a lot of ‘Oh-my-Gods.’ ”

The shooting killed and injured more students than any of the violent campus outbursts since the shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado nearly two years ago. In that rampage, two teenagers killed 13 people and injured 23 others.

Expressions of regret and anger poured in from around the country. President Bush called the attack “a disgraceful act of cowardice.” Gov. Gray Davis, whose wife Sharon attended the school nearly 30 years ago, said the bloodshed hit close to home. “Sharon and I are shocked and deeply saddened by this tragedy,” Davis said.

Williams was being held at a county Juvenile Hall on Monday night. Authorities said they had no evidence that anyone aided him, but another law enforcement source said there were reports that friends might have talked about helping him before backing out at the last moment.

Just after sundown, nine sheriff’s investigators and FBI agents entered a first-floor unit at the modest Sanside Apartments in Santee, seizing seven long-barreled weapons and a computer hard drive.

The boy reportedly lived in the apartment with his father; his mother lives in North Augusta, S.C.

Monday’s events seemed remarkable because of both the number of times Williams allegedly made threats and how few were ever reported to authorities.

Most recently, Williams had spent the night at friend Josh Stevens’ house. Stevens’ mother’s boyfriend, who was in the home that night, said Monday that he had heard the boy threaten to go on a shooting rampage.

But the boyfriend, Chris Reynolds, said later that he couldn’t be sure the boy was serious. Reynolds said he warned the youth that he would call sheriff’s deputies if he got any inkling that he really intended to harm anyone.

“I should’ve stepped up even if it wasn’t true . . . to take that precaution,” said Reynolds, 29. “That’s going to be haunting me for a long time. It just hurts, because I could’ve maybe done something about it.”

Williams had said he would use his father’s guns, which he said were kept in a locked case, said Dustin Hopkins, 15. But when pressed about what he would do, the youth backed down, saying that he was joking and that he didn’t even have a key to get to the weapons.

Hopkins said in the aftermath of the shootings that he couldn’t believe it had all come true. “I can’t think of why he would have done it,” Hopkins said.

The only threat earlier Monday morning had been the rainstorm that was bearing down from Northern California. The unreality of those first popping gunshots did not turn to real fear until the victims began falling.

Campus security guard Ruiz had his hands raised and was walking from the bathroom where Williams was reportedly holed up when yet another shot sounded. Hit in the back, the guard staggered forward and fell on his face in front of several students.

“I saw the [security guard] fall to his knees and then to his face,” said senior Steve DiBella, 17. “He was bleeding and he started to crawl forward. I just grabbed my girlfriend and got out of there.”

Then the small gunman emerged from the restroom and began spraying bullets around the open quad. The slight boy, barely 5 feet tall and wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, allegedly fired indiscriminately.

Authorities would say later there were no apparent targets, just anyone who got in the way.

A friend of the suspect, Steven Meincke, said he was no more than 30 feet away. “He was standing there shooting at me!” said Meincke, a 16-year-old sophomore. “Shooting at me! . . . It was one person. It was Andy.”

There were a few moments of courage, others of clear thinking. Barry Gibson, 18, ran from the scene but doubled back when he learned a friend had been shot--only to be shot in the leg himself.

Wes Clonts, 15, had been heading to a biology class. Suddenly a teacher pressed him into triage. He hurried to the side of another student shot through the chest and used the victim’s shirt to try to staunch the flow of blood.

Student John Schardt, a budding photographer, grabbed his camera and stepped into the quad to start shooting pictures. Another student aimed a video camera.

A teacher shouted at Schardt: “It’s not worth it; get back inside!” But Schardt continued to press his shutter. By then, 9:28 a.m., deputies had arrested Williams, just six minutes after the first 911 call.

Like many who saw the gunman firing, Schardt could not forget his smiling face.

“It had an evil, sadistic demeanor to it,” Schardt said.

Said another student: “It was malicious. I couldn’t believe he was smiling.” Yet another called it “a Grinch-type of smile.”

Williams lived with his father, Charles Jeffrey Williams. He spent a lot of his time hanging out in parks and drinking with other teenagers, friends said.

He could play bass a little, and talked about forming a heavy metal band to be called Army of the Wicked with his friends.

Just last week, friends said, he ran into trouble when a police officer confiscated five 40-ounce bottles of beer from him and sent him on his way.

Even those who were supposed to be his friends “punked” Williams at times. He was so thin that some described him as “anorexic” and so pale that others called him “albino.” And he didn’t ever seem to do anything about it.

Said a friend: “He didn’t have an easy life.”

Williams’ revenge fantasies seemed to grow especially violent and specific over the last weekend as he told his friends he planned to shoot up his school.

Apparently no one ever went to police or school officials. “I didn’t want him to get in trouble for just joking,” said one boy.

Afterward on television, images of shock and grief played out at the campus and in suburban Santee, a community previously viewed as a suburban haven.

An Illusion of Safety

Many parents who work in downtown San Diego considered the school, like the community, to be safely removed from the sometimes rough-and-tumble life of the bigger city.

The campus has become slightly more integrated of late, but it’s still 85% white and, to some, seemingly immune from the ethnic tensions of other communities. Many parents saw the attack as an unforeseeable anomaly.

“Never, not here,” said Greg Evjen, whose daughter is a freshman at the school. “It’s a good school. We’re completely surprised. I don’t think we have to worry about this again. This is a random act.”

But other parents said it would be too easy to ignore ethnic tensions in the school and the community of 60,000--exposed by a 1999 attack on a black Marine by five white men and the distribution of racist leaflets at Santee’s two high schools.

Larry Robles, whose son Gentry ran home safely from school Monday, said he had feared for years that there might be a violent outburst on campus. He said there had been previous reports of weapons brought on campus, but no action to install metal detectors or other safety devices. School officials were not immediately available to respond to that assertion.

Mayor Randy Voepel insisted Monday afternoon that anybody looking to find a sick community would not find it in Santee. Voepel said the town of stucco homes and cul-de-sacs is a place of Little League, soccer games and hot dog cookouts. The crime rate is one of the lowest in Southern California, he said.

“This can happen in any town in America, if it can happen in a town like Santee,” Voepel said. “We are America.”

Perhaps. And a country still divided on the question of guns. Security guard Ruiz’s uncle was both sad and angry as he stood outside the hospital where his nephew was hospitalized with five gunshot wounds.

“People in the military and police should have guns,” said the uncle. “This is ridiculous.”

As night fell, parents and students began to return to campus, gathering on the sidewalk in front of the stone monument bearing the school name. Hugging and crying, they staged a quiet impromptu vigil. Many brought flowers, candles and bunches of purple balloons bearing the name of the school mascot: Santana Sultans.

Some left handwritten signs: “Our prayers are with you and your families,” one read. “Santee grieves for its children,” read another.

Cheryl Howe-Rubio, a 1984 graduate of Santana High who now lives in neighboring El Cajon, brought a bouquet. She was crying as she laid down the flowers.

“Some of my happiest memories are here,” she said. “When you have walked the halls, when you know the quad that they’re talking about where this took place, when you know every inch of the school, it’s just terribly upsetting. I find this senseless.”

At an evening service at the Sonrise Community Church, about 800 members of area churches dabbed at their eyes as a soloist sang “Child of God.”

Jeanne Vanderhoof, a mother whose son was a witness to the shooting, said: “It’s the same building we left them [the children] at this morning. That same building stands there. Yet our lives are forever marked because we can’t give our children what they need. Where’s the innocence?”

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Times staff writer James Rainey contributed to this story.