Gun Violence Among Students, Gang Members Plaguing S.F.

[Mark Tyson]

11/26/2003 - Gun Violence Among Students, Gang Members Plaguing S.F.

By The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - Three shootings over a 24-hour period left two men dead and police investigators scrambling Tuesday to solve what they deemed a rash of gang-related gun violence.

Meanwhile, weapons checks may be coming to San Francisco high schools following the second shooting in less than three weeks in which a teenager opened fire on students riding a public transit bus.

The latest bus shooting occurred Monday when a 16-year-old high school dropout fired several rounds at a city bus filled with students, police said. The boy was arrested Tuesday.

No one was hurt in that shooting, but a similar shooting aboard a bus on Nov. 6 killed DeShawn Dawson, a 15-year-old Balboa High School student. A 16-year-old was arrested in that case and has been charged with Dawson's murder.

San Francisco's seven-member school board will likely take up the weapons check issue at its Dec. 9 meeting, said school district spokeswoman Lorna Ho. School board president Emilio Cruz told the San Francisco Chronicle Tuesday he was open to the idea.

"The safety and security of students is a paramount responsibility of the district," Cruz said. "Any proactive effort to meet that security is a good thing."

A day after the most recent bus shooting, students expressed fear about the increase of violence at schools around the city, though some didn't think metal detectors at the front gates were the answer.

"We're going to feel like they're always looking at us, looking at what we're carrying," said Luz Rodezno, 18, a senior. "That's not good. We won't feel free."

The specifics on the weapons checks will not be made public until San Francisco schools chief Arlene Ackerman has discussed the proposal with the school board.

Elsewhere in the city, a man was shot to death Tuesday in a southeast corner of the city. Police described the shooting as gang related.

David Richardson, 22, was getting his car smog-checked at a gas station at about 10 a.m. when two gunmen approached, said homicide Inspector Michael Johnson.

"He ran into the gas station and they chased him around the pumps," Johnson said. The men allegedly shot Richardson and fled, leaving the city's 68th homicide victim of the year fatally wounded.

Richardson's shooting came less than 24 hours after gunmen killed Larry Kidd, 24, as he stood at on a street corner in the gang and violence-plagued Bayview district.

Earlier Monday, another man was shot in the leg in what police called a gang-related shooting on Oakdale Avenue.

 

[Standing Wolf]

This can't be true: the People's Republic of California already has some of the most draconian leftist-extremist so-called "gun control" laws in the nation.

 

[Apple a Day]

So let me get this straight- teenagers of school age are shooting at one another OUTSIDE of school and the article implies
a) this is a school-shooting type problem even though the shootings didn't happen on school grounds
b)putting metal detectors at the school doors will prevent teenagers from getting shot on buses and at gas stations?

I noticed the same sort of media tactic not too long ago in another set of shootings... I think it was in Chicago. There were some gang kids taking turns making hits on each other. A couple of them happened in the wee hours of the morning and within a few blocks of the schools so the papers somehow pushed the school-shooting angle.
Is this a new doctrine? Any teenager shot gets used by the media in a seance to raise the ghost of Columbine?

 

[El Tejon]

Well, this could never happen to students of a pooblik skul. They stress the value of human life there.

 

[10-Ring]

Liberal policing hard at work

 

[Dave R]

Gee, I wonder why you don't hear of things like this happening in, say, Amarillo or Jacksonville or any other cities in states that allow normal people to carry concealed?

 

[QuickDraw]

Appleaday,That was my thinking.If the shooting occured outside of
school and on public transit,isn't that the juridiction of the cops,city,etc.?
I doubt the shooters were even students at ANY high school!
Maybe its time to question the students on the bus that was fired upon,
generally people just don't fire on a bus just because.

QuickDraw

 

[billykaldrich]

S.F.Shoot outs

I work in downtown San Francisco and worry about these gun carrying kids all the time. This freaking state will not issue CCW and we are all victims here. Pisses me off.My Cold Steel 5 inch folder is my only defense.I did not survive Vietnam 68-69 to go in the streets here .

 

[duckfoot]

Welcome onboard Billy and you are right! The State of Ca will not let you defend yourself with its tight gun control laws and such, but when did that ever concern criminals in the least.

Never

 

[straightShot]

"Gun Violence"

Every time that I see this term in print or on the web, it makes me sick.

People are violent, not guns. People can use their weapon of choice to be evil, whether it be a bat, knife, poison, chain, vehicle, or whatever, but the media spurts out "Gun Violence" in any story that they can.

I hate even typing the now-accepted phrase. It's a bs term that is used by unknowledgable people and those duped into unknowingly using it.

 

[Mark Tyson]

You are right, straightshot. They have managed to take control of the language, and that is part of the reason we have lost so many of our rights.

 

[PrudentGT]

"That's not good. We won't feel free." From the mouths of babes.

 

[Langenator]

The latest bus shooting occurred Monday when a 16-year-old high school dropout fired several rounds at a city bus

The shooter was a high-school dropout. Since the term contains the word high-school, all high school students must be searched. Nevermind that the shooter wasn't going to school, or that they arleady arrested him.

The Kaliban strike again!

 

[carp killer]

I thought with all these gun laws in the state, it would become a wonderful, happy and safe utopia. California is so F**KED UP.

 

[Moparmike]

"We're going to feel like they're always looking at us, looking at what we're carrying," said Luz Rodezno, 18, a senior. "That's not good. We won't feel free."

Kid, where the hell have you been? Dont you know that your freedom and rights end at that school door? And besides, what possible freedoms and rights could school kids have? Everyone knows that your rights and freedoms arent issued to you by the benevolent government masters until that magic age of 18. Even if you are 18, your rights still stop at the door.

straightShot, my pistol was beating up my old Mauser just the other day. I had to whip him into shape, and patch up that old Mauser. You should have heard that old rifle cry.

 

[Sven]

QuarterBoreGunner hopefully will post on this thread soon - he knows a lot about what's going down in Hunter's Point and some of the other rough spots.

I wonder if these were legally registered handguns? Were the perps CCW licensees?

 

[stv]

Hunter's Point is the area of SF that has the most crime, besides maybe the Tenderloin. Unfortunately, that's the argument antis are using to try to ban gun shows at the Cow Palace.

I severely doubt the perps were CCW licensees, unless they were political cronies (seems unlikely, being 16 y/os in the Point...) and I also doubt the guns were registered.

 

[Dave P]

Hunter's Point ...

... is that the area where the punks hunt their victims?

 

[Strings]

ok, let's stretch the logic a bit...

The shooters were high-school aged. By putting a weapons search at the doors of high schools, we might ctch them before they do something like this (doubt a kid carrying a gun would find a safe place to drop it before entering school). Looks good, except for one thing: "when a 16-year-old high school dropout"...

The one shooter was dro-out, so the check at the school wouldn't catch him. Oh, well... it still makes it look like we're doing something, right?