Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, September 29, 2007
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1
Kyra Evans, left, hugs her daughter Olivia, 15, on Friday after she was was evacuated from Las Plumas High School in Oroville after an armed youth took several classmates hostage for nearly two hours. Three shots were fired, but no one on the 1,420-student campus was injured, authorities say. Sacramento Bee/Brian Baer
OROVILLE -- An agonizing standoff at rural Las Plumas High School ended without bloodshed Friday after an armed youth freed the three classmates he held hostage for nearly two hours -- and then surrendered peacefully.
Butte County sheriff's deputies took the 17-year-old gunman into custody and quickly determined that no one on the 1,420-student campus had been injured. The three shots fired during the incident were all aimed at the ceiling, said sheriff's Capt. Jerry Smith.
About 30 students and a teacher were in the Las Plumas band room where the incident began at 9:14 a.m., Smith said. All but five students were allowed to leave or escaped.
Two of them were released by the barricaded suspect during the first hour. The last three hostages, all girls, were released around 11 a.m. He surrendered at 11:16 a.m.
The suspect was armed with a .22-caliber revolver, Smith said. The Bee is not naming the suspect because he is a juvenile.
Authorities did not comment on what might have triggered the standoff. But Las Plumas students were buzzing that a romantic breakup was the catalyst.
Student Ricky Scurby, 16, said he was in class with the suspected gunman's girlfriend during the ordeal. Scurby said the hostage-taker called the girl from the band room on his cell phone. The girlfriend had broken up with him the night before, she told classmates.
According to Scurby, the girl talked to her boyfriend, trying to calm him down and telling him: "I love you. I still love you."
The girlfriend, crying hysterically, said that the boy told her he didn't "want to live anymore."
The school went into immediate lockdown when fleeing students told teachers that an armed student was in the band room.
As soon as the lockdown began, Las Plumas Principal Sandy Dovell and another school administrator began walking the halls to determine what was going on.
Dovell said she could see kids standing around inside the band room -- which was not proper procedure for a lockdown. They were supposed to be under their desks. Dovell opened the band room door.
"Here's this young man with a gun, and he points it right at us," the principal said. "We raised our hands and backed up and said, 'Just calm down.' "
The two administrators left the room and immediately called police to confirm that the student did have a gun. Dovell said she didn't remember much about the chaotic scene inside the room.
"I just remember the gun," she said.
The principal wouldn't comment on the student's academic history, but she said there was nothing to indicate he would take such extreme measures.
The young suspect faces a variety of possible charges: kidnapping, bringing a gun to school grounds, assault and making terrorist threats, authorities said.
Smith said Deputy Will Brewton, assigned to Las Plumas as its school resource officer, led negotiations with the gunman and eventually talked him into surrendering.
"We are very fortunate that the SRO was also a trained hostage negotiator," Smith said of Brewton, who has been with the department only three or four years. Once negotiations began, Smith said, "it didn't take very long to convince him to release the three hostages he had."
During the standoff, the suspect spoke to Brewton via cell phone. He did make one demand -- for cigarettes. He didn't get them.
Two of the hostages were permitted to phone their families during the ordeal. At one point, the suspect himself spoke to a hostage's family, but authorities did not reveal what was said.
As the tense situation unfolded, frantic parents were instructed to go to the Church of the Nazarene on Monte Vista Avenue, where students were sent.
At noon, more than a dozen school buses pulled into the church parking lot, where students slowly filed into a meeting room to be reunited with their families.
Las Plumas had an out-of-town football game scheduled Friday night, and several girls were dressed in cheerleader outfits and boys were wearing football jerseys. The game against West Valley High in Cottonwood has been rescheduled for tonight.
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About the writer: The Bee's Ryan Lillis can be reached at (916) 321-1085 or rlillis@sacbee.com. Lillis and Enkoji reported from Oroville, Korber and Lofing from Sacramento.
A student waits on a school bus after being evacuated from the Oroville high school. Sacramento Bee/Brian Baer
A 17-year-old high school student was arrested after holding a high school class hostage in Oroville, California. The gunman had reportedly planned to shoot a romantic rival, but been stymied when he couldn't find the other youth.

Entering a classroom he expected to find empty, intending to commit suicide, the student discovered a class in progress -  and instead fired several shots in to the air and decided to instigate a hostage situation, seizing the 25 students and their substitute teacher.  

Thirty minutes into the crisis, speaking by cellphone with a hostage negotiator, the student had agreed to release nearly all the hostages, except three students and the teacher.

After about an hour, the student surrendered and the situation ended peacefully. 

The student has been charged with attempted murder, forcible confinement and bringing a gun to school.

The situation occurred exactly one year and one day after another hostage situation in Colorado.