SANTEE, Calif. — A 15-year-old boy who had been picked on and had talked about shooting classmates allegedly opened fire in a high school bathroom Monday, killing two people and wounding 13 in the nation's deadliest school attack since Columbine.
One student said the boy had a smile on his face as he fired away with a pistol at Santana High School in this middle-class San Diego suburb.
Santana High School in suburban San Diego is living out its own Columbine-type pains. After a shooting Monday at the school, sisters Cora Reeder, left and Tiffany Lynch find comfort in the arms of their father, Joe Lynch. Two people were killed and 13 wounded in the shooting.
The boy, a freshman whose name was not released, surrendered in the bathroom, dropped his gun and said he acted alone, telling officers: "It's just me," according to sheriff's officials.
Officials did not release the suspect's name, but the shooter was identified by students as Andy Williams and a source close to the investigation said his full name is Charles Andrew Williams.
Authorities said he will be charged as an adult with murder, assault with a deadly weapon and gun possession. Sheriff's and FBI officials served a search warrant Monday night on the apartment where the teen lived with his father and removed a computer hard drive about 30 minutes after entering.
The slain students were identified as Bryan Zuckor, 14, and Randy Gordon, 15. Authorities said one of the victims was a campus supervisor, while a student suffered minor injuries in a car accident while fleeing the 1,900-student school.
"I know in your minds is the overriding question: 'Why?"' Dist. Atty. Paul Pfingst said. "The suspect has made statements. I will not share the contents of the statements with you at this time, but there is no real answer. I am not sure in any real way we will ever know why."
Fellow students and an adult acquaintance said they had heard the boy's threats over the weekend but thought he was joking and did not report him to authorities.
Jan. 10, 2001: 17-year-old gunman fired shots at Hueneme High School, about 60 miles north of Los Angeles, before taking a student hostage.
May 26, 2000: 13-year-old honor student allegedly killed his teacher, Barry Grunow, on last day of school in Lake Worth, Fla. Nathaniel Brazill is charged with first-degree murder.
Feb. 29, 2000: 6-year-old boy shot and killed 6-year-old classmate at Buell Elementary School in Mount Morris Township, Mich. Because of his age, the boy was not charged.
Dec. 6, 1999: 13-year-old student fired at least 15 rounds at Fort Gibson Middle School in Fort Gibson, Okla., wounding four classmates. Seth Trickey was convicted on seven assault charges, but will not remain in jail past age 19.
Nov. 19, 1999: 13-year-old girl shot in the head in school at Deming, N.M., and died the next day. A 12-year-old boy later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to at least two years in juvenile prison.
May 20, 1999: 15-year-old boy opened fire at Heritage High School in Conyers, Ga., with a .357-caliber Magnum and a rifle, wounding six students. T.J. Solomon later pleaded guilty but mentally ill and was sentenced to 40 years in prison and 65 years of probation.
Apr. 20, 1999: Two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 before killing themselves.
May 21, 1998: Two teen-agers were killed and more than 20 people hurt when a teen-age boy opened fire at a high school in Springfield, Ore., after killing his parents. Kip Kinkel, 17, was later sentenced to nearly 112 years in prison.
March 24, 1998: Two boys, 11 and 13, fired on their Jonesboro, Ark., middle school from nearby woods, killing four girls and a teacher and wounding 10 others. Both boys were later convicted of murder and can be held until age 21.
"He was picked on all the time," student Jessica Moore said. "He was picked on because he was one of the scrawniest guys. People called him freak, dork, nerd, stuff like that."
Student John Schardt, 17, was in a nearby classroom when the shooting started about 9:20 a.m. in a boys' rest room and spilled into a quad.
"I looked at the kid, and he was smiling and shooting his weapon," Schardt said. "It was total chaos. People were trying to take cover."
Schardt said he took photos of victims and another student videotaped the gunman's arrest, but authorities confiscated the film and the tape.
Andrew Kaforey, a 17-year-old senior, said he ran into the bathroom with a security guard after hearing what sounded like a firecracker or a gunshot. "He pointed the gun right at me but he didn't shoot," Kaforey said.
As he and the guard ran out, the gunman shot the guard in the back, Kaforey said.
Investigators said the boy used a .22-caliber revolver, stopping once to reload, and retreated after the shooting into the bathroom.
The attack was the nation's deadliest school shooting since the April 1999 bloodbath at Columbine High near Littleton, Colo., where two teen-agers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before committing suicide.
In Washington, President Bush called the shooting "a disgraceful act of cowardice."
"This is my worst nightmare," Principal Karen Degiescher said. She said that the campus will be closed today and that counselors were called in to help students.
Classmates and acquaintances of the boy described him as skinny and the subject of constant harassment. Students said he boasted about owning a gun.
Over the weekend, the boy "was joking on and off that he was going to come to school and shoot people," said Joshua Stevens, 15, a friend of the boy. "He had it all planned out, but at the end of the weekend he said he was just joking and he wasn't really going to do it.
Santana High School freshman Andy Williams is shown in a sheriff's car in San Diego, Calif., after allegedly opening fire in a high school bathroom, killing two people and wounding 13. Dist. Atty. Paul Pfingst on Monday identified the shooter as Charles Andrew Williams and said he would be charged as an adult with murder, assault with a deadly weapon and gun possession. He will be arraigned on Wednesday. Fellow students said they knew the shooter as Andy Williams.
"I said, 'Like, you better be.' And he said, 'No, I'm serious."'
"I should've stepped up even if it wasn't true and stuff to take that precaution," said Chris Reynolds, a 29-year-old who is dating Stevens' mother. "That's going to be haunting me for a long time; that's going to be with me for a long time. It just hurts, because I could've maybe done something about it."
Reynolds said that the boy lives with his father and that his mother lives out of state. He said the boy stayed at Reynolds' house Saturday night and talked about starting a shooting spree.
"I even mentioned Columbine to him. I said I don't want a Columbine here at Santana. But he said, 'No, nothing will happen, I'm just joking,"' Reynolds said.
Neil O'Grady, 15, said the suspected gunman had also talked to him and other friends over the weekend about a shooting at the school.
"He was telling us how he was going to bring a gun to school ... but we thought he was joking," O'Grady said. "We were like, 'Yeah, right."'
Recently, two skateboards had been stolen from the boy, O'Grady said. "He always gets picked on. He's scrawny, he's little," O'Grady said. "People think he's dumb."
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