 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Judge delays arraignment in school shooting
Suspect's mother, father shocked at suspect son
EL CAHON, California (CNN) -- A judge Wednesday postponed the arraignment of a teen accused of a shooting rampage at Santana High School. Charles Andrew Williams, 15, made his first court appearance just hours after students returned to the Santee, California, school where two classmates were fatally shot and 13 people wounded Monday. San Diego Chief Deputy District Attorney Kristin Anton said her office is charging Williams with 26 counts, including two counts of murder. Williams wore an orange jail jumpsuit and did not speak as his public defender asked the judge for a continuance. That was granted and the arraignment was rescheduled for March 26. County Superior Court Judge Herbert J. Exarhos agreed with prosecutors that because of the charges against Williams, he is not entitled to bail. At the school, meanwhile, students holding hands and clutching flowers and balloons, returned to the site of a bloody and fatal shooting rampage in which more than 30 rounds from a .22-caliber revolver were fired in the school.
"I walk everyday that way to my first class," said 18-year-old Nicole LaPage, who came to the school Tuesday night with classmates and their families, invited by officials as an opportunity to begin coming to grips with the shooting. But LaPage said she was unable to step through the school's entrance. Authorities asked three students to stay away when the school reopens. The three said they heard Williams last weekend threaten to stage a shooting at the school, but thought he was joking and did not report what they heard. "I believe it is not in the best interests of those three to be on the campus tomorrow, so we are taking steps to do intervention," said Granger Ward, superintendent of the Grossmont Unified School District. "They will not be on campus." Ward said the school district was examining whether any action could be taken against the students for failing to report Williams' statements, but no decisions have been made. Quick action prevented more tragedyBryan Zuckor, 14, and Randy Gordon, 17, were killed in the shooting. Thirteen people, including a student teacher and another school employee, were wounded. Authorities said quick action by sheriff's deputies and an off-duty police officer prevented a greater tragedy. San Diego police officer Bob Clark was at the school Monday morning registering his daughter for classes when he noticed a commotion. "I got as much information as I could and started working my way toward where the suspect was," Clark told CNN. Three San Diego County deputies arrived shortly afterward, he said, and the group of them talked to Williams through the bathroom door, convincing him to drop the gun and surrender. "He appeared very calm, relaxed, unremorseful, unemotional," Clark said. "There's been a lot of these situations," he said. "I don't see how you could do something like this and not have emotion, but he didn't." 'An angry young man'Authorities who interviewed the teen-ager after his arrest called the boy "an angry young man" but could not say just what Williams was angry with. "For reasons unknown to us, he started firing indiscriminately -- first at two individuals who happened to be in the bathroom and then at all students and staff who passed by the outside of that bathroom door," said San Diego County Sheriff's Department Lt. Jerry Lewis. Williams' mother, who has been divorced from the boy's father for 10 years, tearfully said her son's "future is gone" when she answered the door for a reporter at her North Augusta, South Carolina, home. Linda Wells said her "heart goes out" to the families of those who were killed in the shooting spree.
"They've lost their babies, their hopes, their dreams for their futures," Wells told CNN affiliate WJBF. Williams' father, Charles Jeffrey Williams, a lab technician at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, said he was shocked by the shooting. "We understand that the general public wants answers to how and why a thing like this could have happened at the hands of what everyone reports to be a well-mannered, good kid," he said in a statement released on Tuesday. "The family, too, joins the public in this need for answers." According to authorities, the teen-age Williams used a .22-caliber long rifle revolver that belonged to his father, who told investigators it was kept in a locked cabinet. Wells told The New York Times earlier that her son had lived with his father since the divorce, and the pair moved from Maryland to California about a year ago. She said she last saw the boy during a holiday visit two months ago. CNN Correspondent Anne McDermott and The Associated Press contributed to this report. RELATED STORIES:
Investigators: Teen 'reloaded 4 times' RELATED SITES:
Santana High School |
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Back to the top | |
© 2003 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us. |
){kind=link}