LA school shooting victim speaks out
The Cochran Firm, with office locations nationwide
1/22/2011 By Andrew Dalton
Los Angeles, CA (AP) -- A 15-year-old boy said he thought he was going to die after he was shot at a Los Angeles high school. His mother said she planned legal action against the school district.
"I glanced around and there was this loud boom and I couldn't move," Trendell Gholar told KCAL-TV on Friday. He said he was bleeding and in pain, but didn't realize he'd been shot.
Gholar and a 15-year-old girl were hit by a bullet when a gun went off as a 17-year-old student reached into his backpack at Gardena High School on Tuesday. Gholar was released from the hospital Wednesday. The girl remains hospitalized. The bullet didn't penetrate her brain, but it fractured her skull, and doctors said it was too early to determine whether she might have suffered permanent damage.
A law firm said Gholar's mother, Anita Stubblefield, is planning a legal claim against the school district.
The Los Angeles Unified School District "failed miserably" in protecting students by failing to conduct random weapons searches daily, as its policy calls for, the Cochran Firm said in a statement Friday.
"This tragedy was 100 percent preventable," said attorney Joseph M. Barrett.
A phone message left after business hours seeking comment from district representatives was not immediately returned.
Gholar said he turned around and saw the girl who'd been shot fall to the floor and "that's when I really got scared," he said.
Gholar said he was able to walk outside and a school security guard walked him to the nurse's office. He said he was in the locked office, frightened and alone for about 40 minutes, before paramedics came and took him to the hospital.
"I started banging, banging on the wall cause I was scared, you know, I felt blood and that's when I was getting unconscious," he said.
Gholar said he didn't see the gun go off and thought it might have been a bomb.
"I just seen like a big hole in the backpack and he (student who owned the backpack) was trying to hurry up and get out of the classroom," Gholar said.
The suspect made his first appearance in Long Beach Superior Court Friday on charges of bringing a firearm into a school zone and discharging it, district attorney's spokeswoman Jane Robison said. He did not enter a plea.
He'll be held in juvenile custody until next month, when a date will be set to determine whether he should be tried as an adult.
The youth could get seven years behind bars if convicted as an adult, versus nine months as a juvenile.
His lawyer Jack Fuller emphasized the exact charges against his client outside the courthouse.
"The minor has not been charged with intentionally shooting anybody," Fuller said.
Meanwhile, authorities said Friday that another 17-year-old high school student was arrested after Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives discovered he had a loaded gun at the entrance to a school near Compton.
Detectives were looking for a witness to an unrelated crime when they saw the boy acting suspiciously outside Cesar Chavez Continuation High School in the Compton Unified School District on Thursday.
Parker said detectives discovered a semiautomatic handgun with four live rounds in the boy's pocket. They later learned it had been stolen during a burglary in the San Fernando Valley.
They said he also admitted affiliation with a local street gang.
The boy was booked on suspicion of four gun-related felonies and was being held at a juvenile hall in Downey.His name was not released because he is a minor.
The arrests of the two 17-year-old boys were part of a string of gun-related incidents on or near Los Angeles-area school campuses this week.
On Wednesday a school police officer was struck in the chest by a bullet near a west San Fernando Valley high school when he confronted a man breaking into cars, but his body armor stopped the round.
That same day, a Bell High School student was shot in a restaurant parking lot about 50 yards from campus after school had let out for the day.
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