A teen suspected of shooting a 16-year-old boy in the stomach just outside a Santa Rosa continuation school Tuesday morning was in custody along with a possible accomplice as authorities lifted a 2.5-hour lockdown, allowing classes to resume for thousands of high school and junior college students on three adjoining campuses.
The two were taken to the Santa Rosa police station for questioning. Officers arrested the suspected shooter but were determining whether he had an accomplice, Santa Rosa police Capt. John Cregan said.
Police said the shooting appeared to be targeted and that no further threat to public safety existed. They hadn’t found the handgun used in the shooting but they had no evidence a gun remained on campus.
Police said they don’t know whether the shooting was gang related.
The lockdown of Ridgway and the adjacent Santa Rosa High School and Santa Rosa Junior College was lifted about 11:35 a.m. Students were set to remain on campus and continue with their normal schedule, police said.
Schools were allowing students to leave campus, either by being signed out by their parents or if parents call to give permission for their child to go if they drive themselves, according to police.
About 10:30 a.m. police officers walked one suspect from the Ridgway Avenue campus to a parked patrol SUV. The male, wearing all black clothing, smiled as he walked, according to witnesses.
He was loaded into the vehicle and then officers brought out a second male, wearing a red sweatshirt. He hung his head as he walked. Initial reports suggested that the attack involved a shooter and an accomplice, details that remained unconfirmed by about noon.
There were about a dozen people out front of the school as the two were taken into custody, including a few parents and students.
Cregan said several people called 911 just before 9 a.m. about gunfire near the school and arriving officers found several witnesses. The victim, wounded in the stomach, had driven himself to a hospital. There was no sign of any suspects. Cregan said the victim was in stable condition.
The shooting happened at the intersection of Ridgway Avenue and Morgan Street, just west of the continuation high school. Police blocked traffic and locked down Ridgway and the two adjoining campuses amid an armed search by officers for the shooter. The closed area between Ridgway and Elliot avenues, takes in Santa Rosa’s largest collection of school campuses, spanning more than 170 acres and serving thousands of high school and junior college students.
SWAT officers searched Ridgway classrooms and a drone aided the effort.
There were witnesses to the shooting as it happened while students arrived for class.
Surveillance video assisted officers and initial reports indicated possibly two shots were fired. The shooter and a possible accomplice then fled onto campus, police reported.
During the lockdown, pPolice officials asked parents not to come to the schools but to go to The Jockey Club at 1350 Bennett Valley Road, just east of Brookwood Avenue near the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.
Some parents rushed to the school campuses after hearing about the shooting — mostly after receiving text messages from their children in locked classrooms.
Mari Ferguson’s daughter, a senior at Ridgway High, said she heard the gunfire then texted her mother at 9:05 a.m. telling her the campus was on lockdown.