Students say they felt safe with Sobrato High teachers and
staff
While many across the country have learned about the
”
Columbine-style
”
bomb plot at Sobrato High School, the students themselves say
they felt safe at school and that teachers and administrators acted
in a coordinated, organized manner.
”
It was surprising that this could happen but we knew we were
protected,
”
said junior Priya Chawaphe.
Students say they felt safe with Sobrato High teachers and staff
While many across the country have learned about the “Columbine-style” bomb plot at Sobrato High School, the students themselves say they felt safe at school and that teachers and administrators acted in a coordinated, organized manner.
“It was surprising that this could happen but we knew we were protected,” said junior Priya Chawaphe.
Chawaphe and three other students say that the staff handled the emergency well when it was learned that there could be bombs on the campus.
“The staff was so organized and so on top of it that I think it would have been under control,” said junior Trea Erdmann. “If something would have happened we would have been safe.”
The names of the boys involved, who are14 and 15 years old, will not be released because they are minors. They had reportedly been plotting to place bombs around the school for a month, until other students overheard them talking about it.
Commander Joe Sampson of the Morgan Hill Police Department said he believed students told their parents about what they had heard on campus. When administrators found out, the police were called in and interviewed the boys. While the police were interviewing the boys outside of class, a fire alarm went off, and the police reportedly thought it could have signaled an attack.
It turned out to be a false alarm. Students lined up outside in what they thought was a fire drill. The staff informed the students what was going on without getting frantic, said junior Page Plumeau. An hour later class resumed and the boys had been removed from campus.
District Attorney David Soares could only comment on the generalities of the law applicable to the case. Only the most violent cases involving juveniles can be made public, such as rape with force, murder and shooting into a building. The bomb plot case did not fit into any of the categories, Soares said, and the records will be sealed.
Evidence was taken from the boys’ homes but authorities would not elaborate on what was seized.
Junior Jill Petersen doesn’t think the police found anything.
“I don’t think it’s like the Columbine thing, nothing was found,” Petersen said.
She might not be worried now, but at first she was scared.
“I was scared because you normally don’t hear about that at your own high school,” Petersen said.
The boys were reportedly a part of a gang, but the students maintain that there are no gangs at Sobrato, at least not traditional ones.
“I heard that they were kind of secluded from everyone and didn’t have a lot of friends,” Plumeau said. “Not having friends could really stress someone out. You could have low self esteem and want to take it out on other people. High school is full of lots of problems, stress of work, trying to fit in.”
The students said they thought the answer to the frustration the two boys might have felt was to get them involved in extracurricular activities to make them feel good about themselves. Someone who does that “doesn’t have to take their anger out on anyone because they won’t have any anger,” Plumeau said.
There is a big difference between what happened at Columbine and what happened at Sobrato, Petersen said.
“At Columbine they weren’t caught,” Petersen said. “But at Sobrato they were.”
