Jackson School back to normal after arrest of four `gun
’-toting youths
Just over one week after what could have been a tragedy, nerves have settled down and things are back to normal on the campus and at the YMCA after-school program at Jackson Elementary School.
On April 26, after school hours, Morgan Hill Police dispatchers received calls about men with masks and guns on the Jackson campus. The first caller seemed increasingly nervous as he told dispatchers his wife was on the campus and had seen two men with guns.
In a second call, the man’s wife calmly asked the dispatcher to please send officers to the Jackson campus and began to describe the circumstances. As she described the eyes of two of the suspects, the only part of their faces that were visible, her voice shook with emotion and a hint of tears.
“They looked at me, with no expression in their eyes,” she said.
After a tense time, when the approximately 15 children in the YMCA portable classroom on the campus plus the teacher and a parent who had arrived to pick up her child crouched on the floor, officers arrested the four juveniles, ages 13-16.
The weapons they carried were replicas, not real guns but realistic enough to put the boys in extreme danger of being shot by police, said Morgan Hill Interim Police Chief Bruce Cumming.
Another dangerous decision the suspects made was to run when police asked them to put down their weapons, Cumming added.
Two of the suspects took cover in bushes; two fled toward the playground.
MHPD Officer Rick Vestal noticed that one of the handguns had a white plastic handle. He notified the other officers so police did not fire on the suspects. The teens were arrested without further incident.
Deputy District Attorney Marc Buller said Thursday he has no new information about the case. Interim Police Chief Bruce Cumming said the report on the case took several days to complete, so it could be several weeks before a decision to file charges is made.
At Wednesday’s City Council meeting, Mayor Dennis Kennedy formally asked that the replica gun issue be placed on a future agenda. Council will discuss what kind of ordinance, if any, the city might enact to control minors and replica guns.
Cumming said Thursday that he supported the idea of an ordinance.
“The simple answer is that yes, it is worth looking at,” he said. “We do have an ordinance about some guns in the city limits already. We need to review that and possibly expand it or come up with a completely different ordinance.”
The existing ordinance, Cumming said, covers “pretty much all types of guns that shoot projectiles,” and the guns seized from the suspects he described as capable of shooting, or spring-loaded guns.
The fact that juveniles had the guns, while it may make the situation seem more tragic if someone had been shot, Cumming said it wouldn’t have mattered who had the guns.
“It concerns me about anybody having a gun that looks like a real gun,” he said. “We’re going to research this whole thing (a possible city ordinance), find out if there are state laws that cover to the detail we’re looking form that would protect Morgan Hill.”
It is not only the guns that were the problem, Cumming said, but the manner in which they were used.
“The big issue with this particular situation, is two things really; yes, they had replica guns, but it’s what they’re doing with them,” he said. “If we had seen 7- or 8-year-olds playing cops and robbers in their front yard, no one’s going to pay any attention to it. But when you have kids on school grounds, dressed in a ‘war-like’ way, sneaking around … it adds up to big trouble.”
Any new ordinance, Cumming said, should talk not only about the replica weapons but how they are handled, making it a crime to handle them in a “dangerous, threatening or angry manner.”
“The one thing we would not want to do is infringe on collectors’ ability to collect,” he said. “We don’t care about that. We don’t want to make it illegal for someone who collects these weapons to take them to a show or something. Now, if on the way to the show, the collector threatens someone with it, that’s a problem.”
Police said names of the juveniles would not be released to the School District because the incident was after school hours.
Live Oak High Principal Nancy Serigstad said she and Assistant Principals Debbie Padilla and Brett Lee had discussed the incident, and none of them had heard students discussing it.
“What amazed by about the incident is that Columbine was not that long ago,” Serigstad said, referring to the April 1999 school shooting in Columbine, Colo. “It had such a huge impression on staff, on students. (The incident) makes me ask what do I need to press the message that this is serious.”
Serigstad said the juveniles certainly over-stepped their bounds.
“We have First Amendment rights that allow us certain freedoms, and people have the right to pursue certain freedoms, but it is very clear that we do not have the right to shout fire in a crowded theater, as a typical example,” she said. “By the way they were behaving, these kids infringed upon the rights and safety of others. “
Cumming said parents need to see that their children, particularly their teenagers, stay within their bounds.
“Parents need to know what they are doing,” he said. “We need their help. They need to be aware. It’s all about setting limits and sticking to their convictions. And if they are buying these guns or advocating these types of guns for their children, they are not helping.”
Staff Writer Carol Holzgrafe contributed to this story.
