Shot hits teen at school

1 miss with shotgun; 2 on staff get boy to set it down

Paramedics wheel a wounded student out of a high school Thursday in Taft, Calif.
Paramedics wheel a wounded student out of a high school Thursday in Taft, Calif.

— A 16-yearold student armed with a shotgun walked into a rural California high school on Thursday, shot one student and fired at others and missed before a teacher and another staff member talked him into surrendering, officials said.




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The teen victim was in critical but stable condition, and the suspect, whose pockets were stuffed with ammunition, was still being interrogated, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said at a news conference Thursday evening.

The assailant used a shotgun that belonged to his brother and went to bed Wednesday night with a plan to shoot two fellow students, Youngblood said.

Surveillance video shows the suspect trying to conceal the gun as he nervously entered Taft Union High School through a side entrance after school had started Thursday morning.

When the shots were fired, teacher Ryan Heber tried to get the more than two dozen students out a back door and engaged the shooter in conversation to distract him, Youngblood said. Campus supervisor Kim Lee Fields responded to a call of shots fired and also began talking to the teen.

“They talked him into putting that shotgun down. He in fact told the teacher, ‘I don’t want to shoot you,’ and named the person that he wanted to shoot,” Youngblood said.

“The heroics of these two people goes without saying. ... They could have just as easily ... tried to get out of the classroom and left students, and they didn’t,” the sheriff said. “They knew not to let him leave the classroom with that shotgun.”

The suspect didn’t show up for first period, then interrupted the class of 28 students.

Youngblood said the boy alleged that the two students he targeted had bullied him for more than a year, but the sheriff couldn’t confirm the allegations.

“Certainly he believed that the two people he targeted had bullied him, in his mind. Whether that occurred or not we don’t know yet,” Youngblood said.

Youngblood did not release the student’s disciplinary record, saying he didn’t have it.

The shotgun is believed to belong to the boy’s brother and was in the boy’s home, Youngblood said.

The sheriff’s office did not release the boy’s name because he was a child and had yet to be charged. But many students and community members said they knew the boy and said he was often teased, including Alex Patterson, 18, who went to Taft with the suspect before graduating last year.

“He comes off as the kind of kid who would do something like this,” Patterson said. “He talked about it a lot, but nobody thought he would.”

Trish Montes, who lived next door to the suspect, said he was “small,” “a short guy” who was teased about his stature by many, including the victim.

“Maybe people will learn not to bully people,” Montes said. “I hate to be crappy about it, but that kid was bullying him.”

Montes said her son had worked at the school and tutored the boy last year, sometimes walking with him between classes because he felt sorry for him.

“All I ever heard about him was good things from my son,” Montes said. “He wasn’t Mr. Popularity, but he was a smart kid. It’s a shame. My kid said he was like a genius. It’s a shame because he could have made something of himself.”

The wounded student was flown to a hospital in Bakersfield and was listed in stable but critical condition Thursday evening. Officials said a female student was hospitalized with possible hearing damage because the shotgun was fired close to her ear, and another girl suffered minor injuries during the scramble to flee when she fell over a table.

Information for this article was contributed by Robert Jablon, John Antczak and Juliet Williams of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 01/11/2013

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