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DeAnza High School website

De Anza High School, the scene of the tragic incident..

Three students and an adult were shot after the Pinole Valley vs De Anza football game that took place at De Anza High School last Friday after a series of fights broke out during the game. This resulted in two students from De Anza High being transported to a nearby hospital in critical condition, while a third student from a private school near De Anza and an adult were also injured.

WCCUSD’s superintendent, Matthew Duffy, addressed the shooting in an email he wrote 2 days after the tragic event near De Anza High School took place.

“Safety is the absolute priority of our school board and district leadership. We will take all necessary measures to ensure our schools, our games, and most importantly our students are safe. To that end, if we need to take more extreme measures around prohibiting fan attendance or even canceling games, we will do so.”

Even Pinole Valley students who did not attend the game had much to say regarding the incident. Jackie Montes, a senior, said “I think they should put a stop to violence and they need to have more gun control, so not anyone can just obtain a gun. I think that people should learn how to resolve their arguments without getting violent.

“There were fights and the argument they had caused other people that were innocent to get shot. People just need to be more careful and need to control their anger and find other ways to fix the problem instead of hurting other people around them.”

Jacob Shaw, also a senior, added, “I mean to be honest–it was really sad, you know? I wish something like that wouldn’t have happened and I hope all of us can come back strong. Be safe out there people and always be aware of your surroundings and stuff!

Another senior, Dominic Griffitts, said “I think that it was a very childish act and it’s stupid. There’s no real reason why you should use your weapon. The way it looks or seems from the news and from the stories I’ve heard of it probably from a teenager is that is it a very stupid way to do anything or to conduct it and a very dumb response to probably a disagreement, which is very dumb!

“In my personal opinion, it shouldn’t have happened. It should have been let go, rather than people making a stupid decision and making a whole public scare, and people being injured. It should not have happened.”

“Somebody, I would say, is childish enough or weak enough minded to resort to violence. In terms of doing that, giving weapons in general (mainly firearms) a bad rep and this is the reason why because they are in the hands of children or people who act like children and can’t control themselves in a way that deems worthy of them having a firearm at all.”

Students who did attend the football game understandably also thoughts on the matter. Vincent Viray, a freshman, noted that “There were fights and a girl got pepper-sprayed in the face during one of them.

Anthony Schell, another freshman, chimed in that  “(t)here was more than twelve gunshots fired and people were just taking off leaving. The cops had people stay because people’s cars were there where the shooting happened and the police wanted to interrogate them to see if they knew anything about the suspect. A lot of people were trying to get out of there fast and cars were swerving.”

Pinole Valley High School principal Kibby Kleiman had to say in regards to the incident.

Kibby Kleiman: Myself as principal, Mr. Nalic and Mr. Kolb (my assistant principals) were there. We spent our time supervising the Pinole Valley side of the bleachers where our students sit and we watched our football team and that was about it! But what I saw in the evening was, it looked like there was a lot of drama and a lot of conflicts going on throughout the stadium.

One of the things broke out near our stand, so it looked like there was a fight that needed to be stopped. Neither of the students involved were from Pinole Valley. Then, we saw something going on by the scoreboard on De Anza’s side and then we saw a group of people running towards another incident, so it looked pretty messy is I guess what I would say.

When the game ended, myself and my administrators stayed on our side of the field to see that the kids got on the bus and that our crowd was able to exit and before you knew it, there were over 100 students streaming back in from the outside back onto the field saying that there had been gunshots. Like everybody else here, we were like “what is going on?”

My report was that there was a De Anza who got shot, there was an El Sobrante Christian girl who got shot, there was a third De Anza person who got shot but was not hospitalized or was released, and then an adult was also injured, too. As far as I know and this is going off police reports, there were three high school-aged victims, two from De Anza and one from El Sobrante Christian School.