Crime Report

Armed Officer Working at Atlanta Middle School Disarmed Suspect

Updated 9:49 PM ET

(AP) ATLANTA – A student opened fire at his middle school Thursday afternoon, wounding a 14-year-old in the neck before an armed officer working at the school was able to get the gun away, police said.

Multiple shots were fired in the courtyard of Price Middle School just south of downtown about 1:50 p.m. and the one boy was hit, Atlanta Police Chief George Turner said. In the aftermath, a teacher received minor cuts, he said.

The wounded boy was taken “alert, conscious and breathing” to Grady Memorial Hospital, said police spokesman Carlos Campos. Grady Heath System Spokeswoman Denise Simpson said the teen had been discharged from the hospital Thursday night. Campos said charges against the shooter were pending.

Police swarmed the school of about 400 students after reports of the shooting while a crowd of anxious parents gathered in the streets, awaiting word on their children. Students were kept at the locked-down school for more than two hours before being dismissed.

Investigators believe the shooting was not random and that something occurred between the two students that may have led to it.

Schools Superintendent Erroll Davis said the school does have metal detectors.

“The obvious question is how did this get past a metal detector?” Davis asked about the gun. “That’s something we do not know yet.”

The armed resource officer who took the gun away was off-duty and at the school, but police didn’t release details on him or whether he is regularly at Price. Since 20 children and six adults were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in December, calls for armed officers in every school have resonated across the country.

Hours after the Atlanta shooting, several school buses loaded with children pulled away from the school and stopped in front of a church about a half-block away. Parents tried boarding the buses. Police who initially tried to stop the parents, relented and screamed, “Let them off!” about the students.

James Bolton was at work when his sister called saying a teen had been shot at his son’s school and was in the crowd as parents began swarming the fleet of buses.

“Move, I see my son, I see mine!” he said, running up to embrace James Bolton Jr. “As long as I got this one back I’m OK,” he said, holding his son’s head against his chest as parents nearby frantically searched for their children.

Bolton Jr. said he was in class when the intercom sounded and a school official announced the building was under immediate lockdown.

“They told us we had to be quiet,” Bolton told The Associated Press. “They said something went on in the courtyard.” Bolton said he was unaware that anyone had been shot until a reporter asked him about it.

Shakita Walker, whose daughter is an eighth-grader at the school, said she received a text from her that said, “Ma somebody’s shooting and somebody got shot.” Walker, who works at another school, said she jumped in her car and was thinking “just hurry up and get there.”

Walker said her daughter called to tell her that they were being kept in the gymnasium, but she said she was anxious to see her to make sure she was OK.

The fear and anxiety was palpable in the crowd, as one person yelled, “Does anyone know what happened?”

Superintendent Davis sympathized with concerned parents who complained that it took too long for students to be released from the building. He said emergency procedures were followed according to protocol and school district officials would meet Friday to review their response. Calls to the school district were not immediately returned.

Mayor Kasim Reed condemned gun violence in a statement shortly after the shooting and said counselors were at the school to meet with students, faculty and family members.

“Gun violence in and around our schools is simply unconscionable and must end,” Reed said. “Too many young people are being harmed, and too many families are suffering from unimaginable and unnecessary grief.”

Outside the school, Laquanda Pittman said she still hasn’t heard from her sixth-grade son. She said she heard the news of the shooting on TV and immediately came to the school.

“All types of stuff went through my head. I’m wondering whether it was my child who got shot, is my child OK, did he see what happened?” Pittman said.

She said she just wants to see her son.

“As a parent, you just think you can send your child to school and you hope they come home OK,” she said.

CBS Atlanta 46

Retired barber charged in fatal shooting of Newport Beach doctor

Prosecutors have filed charges against a 75-year-old man who is accused of murdering his urologist during an appointment in Newport Beach. Stanwood Fred Elkus of Lake Elsinore has been charged with one felony count of special circumstances murder by lying in wait and a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a firearm causing death, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office. Prosecutors say Elkus, a retired barber, arrived for an appointment at his doctor’s office Monday afternoon and waited in an exam room until Ronald Gilbert entered. Elkus is accused of shooting Gilbert several times in the upper body, according to prosecutors and police. Other doctors heard the shots and attempted to revive Gilbert, prosecutors said. Elkus gave his gun to a staff member in the office and was arrested without incident, they said. Elkus, who is being held at the Orange County jail on no bail, was expected in court Wednesday.

Teachers criticize bill that would arm them

A proposal by a group of Republican lawmakers to arm teachers, administrators and janitors at California schools is getting poor grades from the state’s teachers associations. Assemblyman Tim Donnelly of San Bernardino and six colleagues have introduced a bill that would allow school districts to spend education funding to train teachers and other campus employees in the use of concealed guns in case an armed intruder invades the campus. “I think it’s patently ridiculous,” said Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers. “School funding is precious in California and we’re going to take those precious dollars to have guns on campus? That’s not what our schools need.” As the father of a teenager in L.A. Unified, Pechthalt said, he would be concerned about having his child on a campus with gun-packing teachers. He said school safety should be left to campus police and other well-trained law enforcement. Dean Vogel, president of the California Teachers’ Assn., agrees.   “Putting more guns in schools is really not the way to go,” Vogel said. “Armed security should be left to the experts.” Donnelly indicated that union leaders aren’t necessarily speaking for rank-and-file teachers. “I’ve heard from an awful lot of teachers who said `You know, I love this idea,’ ” Donnelly told reporters at a Capitol news conference. He said the bill “empowers” teachers to avoid being a victim of school violence. Still, the bill is unlikely to get far in the Democratic-controlled Legislature. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said he also opposes using scarce school funding for Donnelly’s plan. “Diverting education dollars to militarize schools when we’re desperately trying to improve education and per-pupil funding is inconceivable and irresponsible,” Steinberg said.

Feds now investigating alleged hate crimes in Compton

The U.S. attorney’s office is considering whether to pursue federal civil rights charges against reputed members of a Compton gang arrested for alleged hate crimes against a black family. Los Angeles County sheriff’s anti-gang investigators say they have turned over their investigation to federal authorities after arresting two men in connection with the alleged hate crimes tied to a series of attacks on a black family—a mother, three teenage children and a 10-year-old boy and a male visitor to the home. After the arrests were made public last week, civil rights activists and local politicians called for federal authorities to become involved in protecting residents’ civil rights. Sheriff’s detectives said Friday they had arrested Jeffrey Aguilar, 19, of Gardena and Efren Marquez, 21,  both alleged members of the Compton Varrio 155 gang, and are continuing to look for more assailants. Both are currently being held in county jails on unrelated probation violations for prior crimes. Sheriff’s investigators say the pair were allegedly involved in the first attack Dec. 31 when a friend came to visit the family and four men in a black SUV pulled up and used a racial slur, saying black people were barred from the neighborhood. They allegedly jumped out, drew a gun on him and beat him with metal pipes. It was just the beginning of what detectives said was a campaign by a Latino street gang to force an African American family to leave. The attacks on the family are the latest in a series of violent incidents in which Latino gangs targeted blacks in parts of greater Los Angeles over the last decade. Compton, with a population of about 97,000, was predominantly black for many years. It is now 65% Latino and 33% black, according to the 2010 U.S. census. “This family has no gang ties whatsoever,” Sheriff’s Lt. Richard Westin told The Times last week. “They are complete innocent victims here.” Sheriff’s detectives have searched 11 locations in Compton, Gardena and Rialto and are hoping to make more arrests. Aguilar is accused of beating the family friend with the pipes and Marquez is accused of waving a gun in his face. Deputies also arrested a juvenile gang member who fought with one of them during a search and tried to grab the officer’s pistol.

3 accused of stealing medical equipment from Camp Pendleton

Three men who worked as contract employees at Camp Pendleton were indicted Thursday on charges of stealing more than $3 million in medical equipment that was meant to be shipped to Marine combat units, including those in Afghanistan. The three were employed as supply clerks at the 1st Medical Logistics Company, which is responsible for storing and shipping medical equipment. They “had access to sophisticated, expensive medical equipment” stored in base warehouses, according to federal prosecutors. Included in the list of stolen items, according to the indictment, were ultrasound machines, defibrillators, ventilators, a laryngoscopy, and kits for dealing with broken bones – the kinds of equipment used to treat injured or wounded troops. The equipment, including an autoclave for sterilizing medical instruments, was meant to be shipped to “combat commands throughout the world.” Indicted were Henry Bonilla, 25, of Pomona; Richard Navarro, 39, of Fallbrook; and Michael Tuisse, 34, of Oceanside. Each faces six felony charges of conspiracy and theft of government property, which could bring a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The indictment charges the three with stealing the equipment and then taking it to medical equipment resellers. The investigation is continuing, said U.S. Atty. Laura Duffy in San Diego.

Man convicted of embezzling $100,000 from O.C. Girl Scouts

A former foreign exchange student from Ghana has been convicted of embezzling more than $100,000 from the Girl Scouts while he worked for the nonprofit, Orange County prosecutors said Thursday. Mawufemor Bierko, 35, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one felony count of grand theft embezzlement and two felony counts of forgery, according to a statement from the Orange County district attorney’s office. Prosecutors said Bierko was sentenced to five years and four months in custody. He was also ordered to pay $102,479 in restitution to the Girl Scouts. Between January 2010 and February 2011, prosecutors said Bierko — a foreign exchange student at the time — worked as a staff accountant for the Girl Scout Council of Orange County. Prosecutors said Bierko stole money by forging 22 checks totaling $102,479. Prosecutors said he forged two checks totaling $9,301 each month for 11 consecutive months, manipulating spreadsheet reports to cover up the amounts of the checks forged and deposited into his personal account. The embezzlement was discovered, prosecutors said, when a supervisor found discrepancies in a financial spreadsheet, which had hidden columns with amounts entered in a white font invisible to the naked eye. The supervisor alerted the chief financial officer, and noticed a short time later that Bierko had cleared his belongings and left the office. Bierko went to an ATM that same afternoon , where he deposited two forged checks. He then booked a one-way flight to Ghana and left the U.S, prosecutors said. Prosecutors said he returned to the U.S. and was arrested on June 30, 2012, in Green Bay, Wis., while boarding a flight to Washington Dulles International Airport en route to Ghana.

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