March 6, 2001

SANTEE -- After threatening for days to bring a gun to school, a teen-ager opened fire at Santana High yesterday, smiling as he killed two students and pumped bullets into 13 other people, authorities said.

Gunshots rang out inside a crowded boys' restroom about 9:20 a.m., sending students fleeing for cover.

The boy accused of opening fire, a 15-year-old freshman who for days warned friends and classmates that he might bring a gun to school, emerged from the bathroom and continued firing for several minutes.

Ten minutes later, as second period classes should have been called to order, mayhem ruled. Worried parents hurried to the campus to look for their children.

There was a trail of wounded and bleeding students stretching from the restroom stalls to a common area called the small quad. Investigators used black markers to draw numbers on each victim's forehead to keep track of them.

One student was pronounced dead at the school. Another boy died at Grossmont Hospital. In the chaotic moments after the shootings, some of the students ran from campus unaware they had been shot.

The two dead students were identified as Brian Zuckor, 14, and Randy Gordon, 17. Two of the 13 people wounded were adults; one a schoolyard supervisor and the other a student teacher.

Charles "Andy" Williams surrendered to sheriff's deputies inside the bathroom after emptying and reloading his .22-caliber handgun at least four times. Investigators say he fired at least 30 shots.

Prosecutors said Williams, who remained in custody, would be tried as an adult on murder and related charges.

In an almost surreal twist to the tragedy, photography students grabbed some nearby equipment and filmed the carnage. Investigators confiscated the film and videotape.

Last night, during a two-hour search of the apartment where the suspect lived with his father, investigators confiscated seven rifles, said Sheriff's Lt. Jerry Lewis. The investigators, including deputies and FBI officials, left the residence with several bags of evidence, a computer and monitor, and a crate of documents and files.

Early warnings

As many as 20 students may have been aware of threats made by Williams last week and through the weekend.

Joshua Stevens hosted a sleepover Saturday night for a group of friends, including Williams. Williams warned Joshua then that he was thinking about bringing a gun to school on Monday.

"The whole weekend I was with him he was joking he was going to shoot people," the 15-year-old freshman said, moments before homicide investigators whisked him off to answer questions.

"He invited us to come out and take (part in the shooting)," said Joshua, who decided against alerting officials because he did not want to get Williams in trouble.

Joshua was not the only classmate with a hint of what was to come.

Alex Ribble, 14, described Williams as a small, skinny boy who frequently was bullied by bigger and older students, rarely stuck up for himself but swore regularly that he would get revenge.

Williams told friends three times during the past week that he was planning a mass shooting.

"He jokes around a lot," Alex said. "We didn't believe him."

None of the 15 to 20 students who knew about the threats took them seriously, said Chris Reynolds, who described himself as the boyfriend of Joshua's mother.

Reynolds said some of Williams' friends took his threats seriously enough to pat him down before school yesterday. But Williams apparently had concealed the pistol inside his backpack, he said.

"I could have prevented it by calling the sheriff's," Reynolds said an hour after the shootings. "I feel guilty for it."

Monday morning

The first hours of the new school week began like most others. Not much seemed out of the ordinary in this close-knit but growing suburb 20 miles northeast of downtown San Diego.

Williams met with some friends before class and smoked some marijuana, more than one student said. A few acquaintances described him as a frequent pot user.

Freshman Analisha Welbaum saw Williams in front of school just after 9 a.m. and asked how he was doing.

"He seemed carefree. I asked him if he was going to school and he shook his head and said, `Yeah.' " said Analisha, safe in her living room hours later.

But that changed suddenly, she said.

"He's over by the bathroom and he's like freaking out. He's standing there shooting," the girl said. "He looks at me and then he just turned again and kept shooting."

As bullets ricocheted off walls and lockers, hundreds of students fled into classrooms and off campus.

Witnesses described a terrifying scenario in which Williams methodically confronted victim after victim.

Student Matthew Hartman said he was staring down a school hallway, looking for his little brother, when he saw the shooter walk out of the bathroom.

"All I know is he turned around and looked at me and shot at me," Matthew said. "I hit the ground like stop, drop and roll, and I wasn't on fire."

The bullets hit a locker behind Matthew.

Survivors were transported to San Diego area hospitals after receiving first-aid at a makeshift triage center in front of the school. Many were later released, but several had surgery. All were expected to live.

Authorities said Williams used a .22-caliber handgun that could fire eight or nine bullets. The gun may have been taken from a locked cabinet in his father's home.

It was unclear how many rounds the boy fired, but witnesses reported delays between volleys of gunfire, meaning Williams had carried extra ammunition and reloaded.

Inside the bathroom

Richard Geske, a 15-year-old sophomore, sat in one of the two bathroom stalls when the first bullets were fired. Like many students, he said the shots sounded like a cap gun or firecrackers.

The bathroom was full when Williams entered; each of the stalls and urinals was occupied, said Richard, who could barely make out the weapon in the crowded restroom.

"It was black. It looked like a six-shooter," he said. "I thought it was a joke."

Richard saw people lying on the floor, but he could not tell whether they had been shot. He ran out of the bathroom after seeing blood beginning to pool beside the victims, and ended up in a classroom huddled with others until officers escorted them to safety.

Williams hustled into the stall that Richard had just left and apparently reloaded.

"If the kid had been a better shot, we'd have been shot," said 18-year-old senior Steven Pace, who stepped from the hallway just seconds before the shooting began.

Inside classrooms, students waited in fear while teachers urged calm. Sheriff's deputies ordered many of the rooms locked down while they swept across campus to make sure there were no accomplices.

An off-duty San Diego police officer and a county sheriff's deputy went to the bathroom and persuaded Williams to surrender.

They asked the boy if he was acting alone. "It's only me," he told Deputy Ali Perez.

Vernon Braaten, a Santana High teacher for 18 years, transformed his room into a safe haven for students as soon as he realized what was happening.

"When I heard the shot and I heard students crying and yelling `There's a gun, there's a gun,' I hustled as many students as I could into my room and locked the door," he said.

Worry and fear

Forty minutes after the shootings, small groups of students and parents were sitting on rocks next to an apartment complex along Mast Boulevard. They hugged and rocked back and forth, crying and sobbing between deep breaths.

At an evacuation center across the street, parents stood on car bumpers to see over the crowd. Emily, Steven, Heather, Ashley -- the names were yelled by friends and family. Cell phones rang continuously.

Debbie and Eddie Kester stood shoulder to shoulder with worry furrowing their brows. They heard from their son Eric in a brief call shortly after the shootings, but they couldn't find him.

"This is the worst 45 minutes of my life," said Eddie Kester, his eyes glistening with tears as he scanned the students crowded in the shopping center parking lot.

Outside a nearby fast-food restaurant, one student showed off to a circle of his friends the two small holes in the pant leg of his baggy blue jeans where a bullet had narrowly missed his calf muscle.

Two hours after the shootings, Santee Mayor Randy Voepel tried to reassure the vast crowd milling across from the high school.

"I just want everyone to know that we've got every resource possible working for Santee," Voepel said into the hand-held microphone of a parked police cruiser.

Pastor Tony Foglio of Sonrise Community Church led the group in an impromptu prayer. "Part of our community is hurting," he said. "Watch over us and heal this community."

Across the nation, violent crime rates among young people are at the lowest levels they have been in two decades. The number of school shootings similarly has dropped in the past 10 years, experts say.

During the 1992-93 school year, there were 55 campus shootings. By 1998-99, the most recent year for which statistics were available, that number had decreased to 26.

"From the statistical analysis, schools are the safest place for kids to be," said Daniel Macallair of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco.

Over that same period, the number of youth homicide arrests also declined sharply to about 1,300 in 1998, the researcher said.

The fact that none of the shooter's friends mentioned his threats to any officials is "as big a part of the problem that this happened" as the shooting itself, Temple University psychology professor Laurence Steinberg said.

  This story was reported by staff writers Susan Duerksen, Susan Gembrowski, Kristen Green, Matthew T. Hall, Brian Hazle, Irene McCormack Jackson, Anne Krueger, Angela Lau, Maureen Magee, Jeff McDonald, Sherry Parmet, Jeff Ristine, Caitlin Rother, Steve Schmidt, James Steinberg and Jessica Yadegaran.