Why some Santa Rosa kids bring guns to school

Although membership and economic incentives are long-recognized reasons why young people join gangs, the wave of campus gun seizures may indicate that some Santa Rosa students are increasingly concerned about their own personal safety, Garduño said.

“We’re seeing this more and more now: Our children are forced to choose one side or another, and that sense of security in choice … is a big part of that,” Garduño said.

The intensity of online threats, which have increased since the pandemic, can prompt a student to carry a gun, Garduño said.

“Sometimes we have kids who challenge each other on social media, and then they have to go to school and end up seeing kids from a rival gang or a rival neighborhood,” Garduño said. “I don’t think their goal is to actually use (their gun) at school, it’s to protect themselves when they go home or when they get to school.”

Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Travis Menke agreed that weapons on campus, including knives, “serve primarily to protect against a known or perceived threat” and that weapons are frequently seized at the downtown mall, identified by police as a bond where students often clash along the way. to or from school.

Firearms are easier to access for young people

The relative ease of manufacturing and access to firearms makes the problems even more acute on Santa Rosa campuses.

Police have removed more ghost guns from the streets than ever before – a record 255 last year.

This year, the department is on pace to seize 400 illegal guns, Santa Rosa Police Department Chief John Cregan said.

Juvenile arrest data also shows the trend is moving in the wrong direction. In 2022, only two minors were arrested with firearms. In 2023, this number increased to 19.

This year, 19 other young people were arrested.

“It’s a broken system when 13- or 14-year-old kids can access these ghost guns,” Cregan said. “In minutes, they can order parts online, watch a YouTube video and assemble it in (their) garage in two hours. »

Multiple solutions for finding weapons on campus

The wave of gun seizures on campus is not surprising to those who work there.

“We thought for years there were guns on campus every day,” said Jim LaFrance, a longtime math teacher at Montgomery High School.

But it was only this year that handguns were discovered. And just because two schools were found on the Montgomery campus doesn’t mean they’re the only schools with guns, LaFrance said.

“I imagine if you searched every kid, there would be a gun on every campus,” LaFrance said. “Now we’re a little more aware of it.”

This is due to a perfect combination of factors intended to increase school safety, he added, such as more staff on campus and a changing campus culture to report possible threats to student safety, including through the district’s STOPIt app, which helped alert authorities and leaders of the district on the two weapons found on campus this year.

And for teachers like LaFrance, it’s also about keeping an eye out for students who might be on the verge of making a bad decision at school.

“I’m developing relationships with kids in my class who I know are making choices outside of school that aren’t smart…and I feel incredibly safe around them,” LaFrance said. “They make bad choices, but they’re not bad kids…these kids are suffering.” »

Students should certainly be held accountable, he added, but “once we do, we shouldn’t immediately believe that they are criminals.”

It’s an approach — hiring more dedicated security staff, improving policies, establishing a strict rule about reporting suspicions and building relationships with sensitive students — that many teachers agree on.

But other teachers and some community members say the two incidents of weapons found on campus in a single week are further evidence that the school district must abandon its opposition to reinstating the school resource officer program that was abruptly discontinued in 2020.

The program was discontinued during a time of national reckoning against police violence. The idea was proposed by school board President Omar Medina, but it quickly garnered support from the majority of the school board.

Three years later, a student was stabbed to death during a fight in Montgomery, and community outcry ensued over the lack of safety precautions in schools. The school board voted in December 2023 to launch a three-year pilot program for resource officers.

Two committees were formed shortly after this vote. A committee, made up of community members, has already submitted its recommendations and suggested changes to a second committee made up of three members of the municipal council and three members of the school board.