THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
October 22, 2019, 9: 18 AM
Updated 13 minutes ago
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Santa Rosa police have detained two people at Ridgway High School about 90 minutes after a shooting Tuesday morning near campus wounded a 17 – year ‑ old male.
The suspects both appeared to be teenage boys, and one matched the description given of the suspected shooter, described as wearing black pants and a black shirt with black sneakers.
Officers were still searching the area for a handgun believed to be involved in the shooting, Santa Rosa police Capt. John Cregan said. The lockdown of Ridgway and the adjacent Santa Rosa High School and Santa Rosa Junior College was lifted about 11: 35 am Students were set to remain on campus and continue with the normal schedule, police said.
About 10: 30 am police officers walked one suspect from the Ridgway Avenue campus to an awaiting patrol SUV. The male, wearing all black clothing, smiled as he walked, according to witnesses.
He was loaded into the vehicle and then officers brought out a second male, wearing a red sweatshirt. He hung his head as he walked.
There were about a dozen people out front of the school as the two were taken into custody, including a few parents and students. )
Cregan said several people called 911 just before 9 am about gunfire near the school and arriving officers found several witnesses, but the victim, wounded in the stomach, had driven himself to a hospital. There was no sign of any suspects. Sgt. Summer Gloeckner said the victim was in stable condition.
The shooting happened at the intersection of Ridgway Avenue and Morgan Street, just west of the continuation high school. Police blocked traffic and locked down three adjoining campuses, spanning more than 170 acres and serving thousands of high school and junior college students, amid an armed search by officers for the shooter.
SWAT officers searched classroom and a drone aided the effort.
There were witnesses to the shooting as it happened as students were arriving for class.
Surveillance video assisted officers with what happened and initial reports indicated possibly two shots were fired. The shooter, and possibly an accomplice, had disappeared further into campus after the shots were fired but whether they’d stayed there or had left the school property wasn’t clear, Gloeckner said.
The closed area between Ridgway and Elliot avenues off Mendocino Avenue takes in the city’s largest collection of school campuses.
Police officials asked parents not to come to the schools but to go to The Jockey Club at 1350 Bennett Valley Road, just east of Brookwood Avenue near the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.
Some parents rushed to the school campuses after hearing about the shooting – mostly after receiving text messages from their children in locked classrooms.
Mari Ferguson’s daughter, a senior at Ridgway High, said she heard the gunfire then texted her mother at 9: 05 am telling her the campus was on lockdown.
Ferguson, 47 , of Santa Rosa said she immediately came to campus. She was standing with a growing group of parents on the sidewalk across from campus at Glenn Street and Ridgway Avenue, hoping their children will be released to them soon.
“I panicked so I’m here, I just came,” Ferguson said.
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