False alarm at Santa Su leaves some parents asking questions
By Miguel Morales miguel@theacorn.com

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers PLATOONED- Police responded to Santa Susana High School last Friday after an ill-timed cellphone call during a classroom viewing of "Platoon" caused a parent to report shots fired on campus.

A mistaken report of gunshots fired on campus at Santa Susana High brought police onto campus last week with their weapons drawn and left some students, parents and teachers asking why they weren't informed until hours later.

"Nobody knew anything for hours. Somebody should have at least told the students what had happened," said Liz Jashinsky, the mother of two Santa Susana students. "They should have shut down the school, especially after what happened at Virginia Tech. It was handled very poorly."

Jashinsky's daughter, Tiffany, a freshman, and son Brad, a senior, were at school last Friday during what Simi Valley Police called a "nonincident.

According to police reports, an accidental cellphone call made by a student during a classroom viewing of Oliver Stone's Vietnam war movie "Platoon" led to a report of gunshots, causing Simi Valley police officers to respond.

The only reason she knew anything had occurred, Jashinsky said, was because her son had called her between classes to say he'd seen officers with guns inside the school. Instinctively she called the school's office- but there was no clear word on what was happening, she said.

"If it wasn't for my son keeping me informed, I don't know what I would have done, and the only way he knew what had happened was because he called the police station," Jashinsky said. "There should have been somebody with some type of authority or common sense calling the shots. It only takes one time for an incident like this to blow up in our faces."

According to Brad, he exited his second period English class to a scene "out of the six o'clock news."

"I stepped out of my class to see police officers in full commando gear running towards a classroom. Of course I'm going to want to know what's going on," Brad said.

Walking to his next class, Brad, 18, said he saw students crying and faculty members standing around asking each other what was going on. In his economics class, his teacher asked the students if they knew anything that had occurred or anything they should be doing.

"Why wasn't the school put on lockdown?" Brad said he and his classmates asked.

"The rest of the day we all waited for some kind of announcement but never got anything," he added. "It was disconcerting that no plan of action was given even if it was a false alarm."

Madissen Ramser, a sophomore at Santa Susana, said it was "shocking to see something like this go down" at her school.

The 16-year-old also said that the flow of information from faculty to students was limited.

"All the teachers knew something, maybe not the entire story, but they didn't saying anything to us," Madissen said. "It seemed like they were trying to keep it a secret."

According to junior Josh Catz, students began to fill in the gaps of information with their own imaginations.

"Nobody told us anything . . . everything I heard was by word of mouth, and the story kept changing every time," Josh, 16, said.

Assistant principal Lynn Johnson said that most of the school went through the day without knowing what had happened or even seeing anything.

She said that a recorded message went out that evening informing parents about the incident. There was no lockdown ordered because the situation was under control within a matter of minutes, she said.

"It was just an accident and it shouldn't have been such a big deal," Johnson said. "We handled it the best we could."

Some parents, like Cindy Miranda, whose daughter is in the 11th grade at SSHS, don't seem to agree.

"My daughter was scared to death and said she didn't want to go to school after what had happened," Miranda said.

"If the school would have said something there wouldn't have been so many rumors floating around and the story would not have been so blown out of proportion," she added.

From the police department's perspective, officers responded in the only manner they could- without hesitation and with full force.

Sgt. John Parks of the Simi Valley Police said that when the department receives a call of possible shots fired at a school, "everybody is going to drop what they are doing and respond."

"This became a 'nonissue' real quick, but we reacted the way we had to," Parks said. "This is one of those calls you don't walk away from- everybody goes."

Officers in that situation are authorized to use high-powered weapons such as shotguns and automatic rifles if there is a suspect with a gun, Parks said.

That may have been the reason why some students mistakenly believed Simi Valley SWAT was on the scene, he said.