Time stopped at Santana High School, Santee, Calif. on March 5, 2001 - Student Andy Williams, 15, kills 2, wounds 13...

North County Times photographer Waldo Nilo was driving me around San Marcos looking for stories when we heard news breaking on the radio. A gunman was on the loose at Santana High School, no details available.

We immediately called the North County Times newsroom, saying we wanted to head down there to cover the shooting.

Ever wondered why the North County Times is about one shade better than a middle school newspaper, maybe, on the NCT's best day? Listen to this, then.

Executive editor Kent Davey --  still Peter Principle-ing away there, paradigm of news judgment -- and Teresa then-Hineline, ditto, told us this was a bad idea. Incredulous, we broke off our mission seeking "wild art" and bee-lined to the Escondido newsroom.

Upon returning, we pleaded our case with a sense of urgency knowing this was a story of national significance. Davey and Hineline, though, continued to hold us back, arguing it was a bad idea because Santee wasn't in the North County Times coverage area. They absolutely didn't want us to go.

We persisted until it almost became physical. To his credit, then-business editor John Van Doorn -- who had been a New York Times employee for several years -- interceded. Davey was shaking his head, but finally relented.

That drive south was faster than a speeding bullet. We knew we hadn't a moment to waste.

We hit the ground running at the outdoor shopping mall across the street from Santana High. It was a scene straight out of Libya today. Students, parents, shopkeepers, later police, were strewn across that asphalt parking lot in madcap frenzy.

Amazingly, despite Davey-Hineline's delaying tactics, we were the first San Diego-based journalists on the ground. A reporter from the Los Angeles Times and a CNN crew had made it there as well. That was it.

The 10-year anniversary of San Diego's personal brush with school murder is this Saturday, March 5. It's been controversial as well. Santee Mayor Randy Voepel this week criticized a private memorial at the school scheduled to commemorate the ghastly event.

Grossmount Union High School District, nevertheless, will close the school on Friday for its private memorial. Voepel plans to hold a public service at noon, Saturday at the concrete Santana High School sign fronting the school entrance at North Magnolia Avenue.

For the record, this is my coverage of the incident along with a video interview this week with the San Diego County Sheriff's deputy who took down the shooter, Andy Williams; a video made real-time behind the scenes at ABC News as Peter Jennings and ABC News covered the breaking event; as well as Williams, in his own words, last year.

For the Record, Part II, Davey continued to criticize the newspaper covering an event outside its alleged coverage area and had to be persuaded vigorously, and vehemently, the next day to allow us to return to Santana for the follow-up story.

Of course, I've won more statewide press association awards for local news coverage since leaving that newspaper than the entire staff of the North County Times combined.

And Ah-Ha RSF News has greater web traffic than the North County Times, a 75,000-circulation daily newspaper distributed from Del Mar to Riverside.

But we digress. Shooter Charles Andrew "Andy" Williams turned 25-years-old last month and is serving a 50-years-to-life sentence for the murder of Bryan Zuckor, then-14 years old, and Randy Gordon, 17. Williams also wounded 13 people in the worst school shooting incident since Columbine High School in 1999.

Believe it (or not) Williams has an advocacy website here called "Andy Speaks.".We'll show you a bit more of that distasteful exercise at the end of the story package.

In any event, we take you live and direct back, back, back to a moment frozen in memory and time: Santana High School, March 5, 2001.

-- Dan Weisman 

Santee students describe a scene of fear and disbelief

DAN WEISMAN

Staff Writer

SANTEE ---- Time stopped at 9:22 a.m. Monday at Santana High School.

That's when the alleged gunman, a 15-year-old freshman identified by San Diego County District Attorney Paul Pfingst as Charles Andrew Williams, began randomly shooting students and adults with a .22-caliber revolver.

John Schardt, a junior, stood about 10 yards from Williams, who allegedly was peppering a nearby bathroom with bullets.

"I didn't think about myself," Schardt said. "I didn't think about anything. It was surreal. That's why I had no fear."

Schardt was in a photography class and picked up a video camera as soon as he heard shots ring out in what quickly became a bloody quadrangle just beyond the classroom's glass panes.

"I said it must be fake, ran and grabbed my camera," Schardt said as he stood in the Albertson's Shopping Center parking lot across the street from the high school, a couple of hours after the shootings. "You saw people running, trying to get away from the shooting. I saw one person in a fetal position in the quad who was shot. I viewed the rest through the windows of a classroom."

Tiffany Lynch, a 14-year-old freshman, said she had just emerged from a first-period math class around 9:15 a.m., a class also attended by the alleged shooter.

"He liked to joke around a lot," Lynch said of Williams. "He never seemed serious. He had been talking about having a gun. His friends told him he would never use it and to stop talking about that.

"Pretty soon he started getting serious. They started patting him down (for weapons) every day (at school). They did it today and didn't feel anything."

But, as first period yielded to second period and Lynch, along with Williams, went into the hall, the world turned topsy-turvy along a hallway leading to a bathroom by the small quad.

"I heard the gunshots and people started running over," Lynch said. "I thought it was a joke. Then I saw people running toward the parking lot area."

Zina Ravin, a senior in a nearby classroom, said she heard three gunshots that "sounded like fireworks, and all of a sudden I was scared. I knew Travis Tate (Gallegos) was shot in the head. Everybody started running 100 miles an hour.

"A person was laying in a room near where my brother Allen was," Ravin said. "My dad called and said, 'Find your brother as soon as you can. Stay put and follow instructions.'"

Senior Lori Zarza "saw a couple of kids fall, and after that everybody was going. A kid was running with blood from his mouth. I was hiding behind a lunch cart. I wasn't really scared."

Zarza probably saved her life by moving away from the cart, because at that point, Schardt said, the alleged gunman was "smiling, shooting in a southward direction."

"He was wearing a blue sweat shirt," Schardt said. "He went into and out of a bathroom, fired a couple more shots and started pointing the gun at somebody else. He wasn't aiming at one particular person. He was blind-aiming at people and shot out the lunch cart at the wall. I was 30 feet away, parallel to him."

Students milled around the school parking lot comforting one another hours after the incident. San Diego County sheriff's deputies and a host of chaplains and counselors counseled them between hugs and sobs. An impromptu private counseling area was set aside by authorities inside a nearby Round Table Pizza parlor. No media members were allowed inside.

For most, expressions of grief mixed with disbelief. Schardt said he had "a sick, sick feeling inside when I heard about the people who died. It hits you differently when it is your school."

And for Debbie Howie, it was a hectic, and unexpected, morning interruption from her job at a nearby Kmart as daughter Lori Mason ran away from school down a long, and fearful, block home to call.

"I'm still shook," Howie said. "You don't know what will happen next. The families are picking up the pieces."

Mason cast a wan look at Santana High School's yellow sign proclaiming "G Ball 6 p.m. at Cox Arena; Thur G soccer."

The sign stood amid a chaotic scene of armed authorities and wandering students, parents and school officials.

And in Mason's hand: a small bouquet of yellow flowers.

"These are Santana's color," Mason said quietly. "I'm going to put them by the front sign for the people who died from our school."

Santana High School Shooting 2001

Michael Motorcycle | Myspace Video

 On March 5, 2001, fifteen-year-old Santana High student Charles Andrew Williams began shooting, killing two, and wounding thirteen. Bryan Zuckor, a fellow student, was the first killed, as he and another student were shot in the bathroom where Williams began. Williams then exited the bathroom and headed for the Santana High School quad, where he opened fire on surrounding students and faculty. There, he fatally shot another student, Randy Gordon, and wounded twelve others (ten students and two staff). Williams then returned to the bathroom where he later surrendered to the police.

Personal accounts of the events relate the initial confusion during the incident, describing the sound of the shots as "like firecrackers". Panic followed as people began to realize what was happening. Witnesses also describe Williams as "smiling" during the shooting. Referring to the chaos after the shooting, one parent remarked, "They just don't have a system to handle this." Students and faculty were evacuated to a nearby shopping center, and local businesses and churches helped to handle students and parents. Others also said that they heard him saying, weeks before the shootings, that he was "going to pull a Columbine."

-- Wikipedia

Believe it or not, some people look at Williams in a positive light. A website devoted to him here appears to have kept current through May 2010. This is a sample...

 May 2010

All,

Hey everyone, I know I know, it's been quite a while since I've written the site but I think it's more I've been busy than it's slipped my mind because it does weigh on my mind, the infrequent letters on my part, and I aplologize. All has been well with me. I don't remember when exactly I last wrote but a little under a year ago I transferred prisons again. Happy to be back in Southern California, the trek up to the northern part of the state was definately not a productive one for me. I've learned that we get strength from struggle. So I'm definately stronger for it. I'm a year away from my A.A. degree which seems like I've worked on, off and on, mostly off thruth be told for 7 years. Then onto the next degree I suppose. I'm currently a cook in the prison main kitchen, I consider it a good day if I don't get a steam burn or any type of cuts. I'm hanging in there and truly do appreciate those of you who have hung with me the last 9 + years. Thank you.

Andy

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