MORGAN HILL
– Panicked parents and a teacher called Morgan Hill Police
Monday afternoon just before 5 p.m. saying that four people with
assault weapons, handguns and wearing black masks were approaching
children about to start baseball practice in Jackson Park adjacent
to Jackson Elementary School.
MORGAN HILL – Panicked parents and a teacher called Morgan Hill Police Monday afternoon just before 5 p.m. saying that four people with assault weapons, handguns and wearing black masks were approaching children about to start baseball practice in Jackson Park adjacent to Jackson Elementary School.
Within 15 minutes, four males ages 13 to 16 were in custody and police had possession of an arsenal of replica weapons. No one was hurt, but it was close.
“They were just a trigger pull away from being shot,” said Lt. Joe Sampson, who was at the scene.
“If they had made a false move or threatened anyone, then the officer is in a situation we never want to find ourselves in,” he said, suggesting that the teen-agers could have been injured or killed. “We were all in a stunned state that this is what these young people chose to do, knowing the consequences.”
Sheila Martinez pulled up in front of the school to pick up her 6-year-old son at the YMCA center just before 5 p.m.
“I saw these two guys with AK-47-type guns and regular-looking handguns about three feet away from me,” Martinez said. “I was mad that they would do such a thing; then I saw that they had no expression on their faces, and I thought they would shoot me.
“I knew they were kids, but I remembered Columbine. It was very scary, the way they looked at me.”
Martinez ran inside the YMCA building and, with a teacher, got the children on the floor as far away as possible from the door, but she kept watching through the window.
“The two met up with two other boys at a grassy knoll near the park. The police were pointing their guns at the boys,” she said.
The teacher, from the after-school YMCA program on the school campus, told police the young men were pointing the weapons toward the rear of houses on Trail Avenue. Trail runs along the eastern edge of the school located on Fountain Oaks Drive between Hill Road and East Dunne Avenue and near Jackson Oaks.
Four patrol officers plus Bruce Cumming, interim chief of police and Sampson, sped to the park and ordered the four with guns and masks to the ground. Two boys took cover in nearby brush west of the park; two others fled toward the school playground, Sampson said.
When an officer approached one suspect who had finally dropped his weapon, the officer found that the gun was a replica and not real. The officer quickly notified the other officers to avoid a potential shooting.
Sampson said the guns appeared to be a black assault rifle, a black semi-automatic handgun, a chrome and black semi-automatic handgun and a white pistol.
“This can be career-ending for an officer,” Sampson said about an officer-involved shooting. “Emotionally, you never make it back.”
All four boys were taken into custody without incident, cited for possession of replica firearms and for felony possession of replica firearms on school grounds. All were cited and released to their parents at the station; the guns were booked as evidence.
One boy had previously come to police notice for possession of a replica firearm in Morgan Hill during the past year, police said. Sampson said he did not know if all four are Morgan Hill residents but, because there were no vehicles or bicycles near the scene, he thought they had walked to the park.
Martinez said she worries the boys will keep on doing this unless their parents get involved.
The Columbine High School incident, in which two Littleton, Colo., teenagers with assault weapons gunned down 12 classmates and a teacher, passed its fifth anniversary a week ago today. Parents, teachers and school administrators across the country have spent years trying to avoid a recurrence with counseling and education.
