Mother: School wrong to bar students after shooting

Four who dismissed shooter's threats kept off California campus

SANTEE, California (CNN) -- The mother of one of four students barred from a California high school in the wake of a deadly shooting said Monday that administrators had unfairly singled out her son and three other students.

GALLERY Images of the aftermath of the Santana High School shooting in Santee, California    RESOURCES Diagram of the Santana High School shooting scene List of Santana victims Timeline of recent school shootings Risk factors for school violence Talking about school violence

Fellow students said the four knew of threats by suspect Charles Andrew Williams, 15, to open fire, but failed to notify anyone.

Police say Williams, a freshman at Santana High School in the San Diego suburb of Santee, used a revolver to kill two students and wound 13 other people at the school March 5.

The four students were barred from campus when classes resumed on Wednesday.

"I just don't understand why out of all the children that were involved in this situation -- there were over 20 kids who heard him saying that he was going to do all this stuff -- and none of the children said anything," Tamara Von Maux, mother of A.J. Gilbert, said in an interview with CNN.

"So basically, they just specifically picked the four kids out to keep them out of school, and they didn't even have enough consideration to call us and let us know that they weren't going to let us take our kids back to school," she said.

School Superintendent Granger Ward said last week the students were not being punished but were asked not to return to Santana for their own safety.

Von Maux was not appeased, saying her son should be in a school "with his friends." She said her son had no idea that Williams was serious about his threats.

"The one thing that he's told me and that I understand from them is that this child ... he was one of those type of kids that wanted to look like he was, you know, tough, and that he had done a bunch of stuff," she said. "Just like any other kid, he exaggerated. He lied. So when he was saying all this stuff everybody just thought he was bragging and lying like he always had."

Services were held this weekend for Bryan Zuckor, 14, and Randy Gordon, 17, the two students killed in the shooting spree.

A student teacher, a school supervisor and 11 other students were wounded in the incident, the most serious school shooting attack since a pair of teen-age students went on a shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, two years ago.

Fifteen people, including the two gunmen, died in that attack.

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