Target practice? Shooting leads to arrests after bullets hit Ceres school buildings
An administrative assistant at Walt Hanline Middle School was in the office doing work for the after-school program on Thursday afternoon when she heard gunfire.
She looked around, then heard a “pop,” said Ceres Police Sgt. Greg Yotsuya. “She hit the deck as pieces of ceiling tile fell on her.”
Just to the north at Central Valley High School, a coach was inside the gym preparing for practice when two bullets struck the exterior wall.
Those bullet holes and 10 spent rounds on the Central Valley High campus would be found later by police.
But the bullet that penetrated the wall of the elementary school office ricocheted off the opposite wall, then landed in the middle of the room.
“She hunkered down and sheltered in place,” said Jay Simmonds, assistant superintendent for student support services for the Ceres Unified School District. “She called and we put the school on lockdown.”
Police were notified, but Simmonds also went in search of the shooters.
“I was pretty sure it was target shooting,” he said. “(The schools) border orchards and fields and the police rifle range is right there, so we hear shooting all the time.”
About 500 feet off Service Road, east of Blaker Road, Simmonds saw three men picking up shell casings and one of them had a gallon jug in his hand that he assumes they had been shooting at.
He yelled out to the men, who were on the other side of a fence. They denied they had been shooting, Simmonds said, but police pulled up moments later and began investigating.
Yotsuya said officers confiscated six handguns and rifles, including a gold-plated AK-47.
When they searched the campuses, they found the 10 spent rounds of varying calibers at the high school as well as the bullet in the elementary school office.
Yotsuya said the men were shooting into the dirt, but with the school as their backdrop, their actions were reckless.
The bullet that went into the office traveled about 300 yards, Yotsuya said.
Simmonds said the employee is “shook up, but she’s OK. It was a very scary experience.”
Officers arrested Juan Garibay-Acevedo, 25, of Escalon; Max Perez-Mendez, 27, of Ceres; and Samuel Perez-Mendez, 29, of Ceres.
They were booked on suspicion of charges including shooting at an inhabited dwelling, negligent discharge of a firearm, child endangerment and possession of an illegal assault weapon. They all have bail set at $275,000.
Yotsuya said he is grateful that campuses are currently closed due to COVID-19 because, while it was after school hours, under normal circumstances there would be a lot of kids on campus for after-school programs.
As it was, he said, students were starting to arrive at the high school for sports practice with the coach who was in the gym.
Yotsuya said that because bullets went on campus, regardless of the absence of intent, the police department has to report the incident to the Department of Justice as a school shooting.
This story was originally published September 25, 2020 at 12:17 PM.
