SANTEE, Calif., March 5 -- When Bob Clarke pulled up in front of Santana High School early Monday morning to enroll his teenage daughter in her new school, his first concern was why so many students were milling around in front. Minutes later, he was worried about whether it would be safe to pull his gun.
Clarke is a San Diego police officer, however on Monday, he was wearing civilian clothes in the territory of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department as he made his way through a beehive of students and faculty rushing to get away from the "small quad" area where gunshots had rung out minutes earlier.
"I had to be very judicious about when I pulled my weapon," said Clarke, who met with reporters decked out in the blue jeans and San Diego Padres T-shirt that he had been wearing when he ventured on to the campus where the worst school massacre since Columbine in 1999 was under way.
Clutching his gold police shield so that his fellow lawmen wouldn't think he was the gunman, Clarke made it to the quad where he quickly joined up with three deputies who had rushed to the campus minutes after the first 911 call was received by dispatchers.
Deputy Ali Perez said he arrived at Santana to a chaotic scene and also made his way toward the quad through the confused and increasingly frightened crowd.
"You can't imagine what it was like, and it is difficult to explain," said Perez, who appeared emotionally drained and spoke barely above a whisper.
"Kids were running in every different direction," he said. "Even though they were very scared -- and so was I -- they were able to point me in the direction where the shooting was coming from."
Perez, Clarke, Deputy Jack Smith and another deputy named Byrne arrived at the small quad and saw some victims sprawled on the ground and three staff members cowering behind a cart filled with lunchroom trays.
Perez ordered the people behind the cart to run for better cover, however one man stayed put.
"I didn't realize he had been shot," Perez said.
The small quad lay in front of the door to a boy's restroom where the officers determined that the shooter, a 15-year-old freshman, was inside and had been firing randomly into the crowd of students that had been walking to their next class as they had every day.
The officers decided their first priority was to keep the suspect cornered inside the restroom. Investigators said they didn't know if the suspect had planned to hole up in the restroom, or if he had intended to move to another part of the school and continue shooting.
It was decided that Smith would move to another part of the quad to see if he could get a clear shot at the victim. He did and he was able to see the suspect clearly.
"Another deputy (Smith) ordered him to drop his weapon," said Perez.
Perez and Clark then moved into the bathroom where they found two wounded people lying on the floor and the suspect in a kneeling position, holding the pistol by the barrel and offering it to the lawmen.
He dropped the gun when ordered to do so, and when the officers started looking around for any other suspects, he said the only words he was known to have said during the entire incident.
"He turned and said, 'It's only me,'" reported Perez.
