School kept in dark on gunman search

Fullerton residents question police role in swarm by ICE, local officers near campus.

- BY KATERINA PORTELA

Google street view A GUNMAN was said to be jumping fences at the Highland Pinetree Apartment Homes. No one was found.

As law enforcement and federal agents searched for an armed man in Fullerton one morning last week, students were arriving at the elementary school just around the corner. Campus officials said they were unaware of the threat.

They and members of their tight-knit Orange County community — on edge over recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in nearby Anaheim and school shootings elsewhere — are asking why the school was not warned.

It was early Thursday morning when the Fullerton Police Department received a startling call: A man, described as wearing a white shirt, was seen with a handgun jumping over fences at the Highland Pinetree Apartment Homes. Officers arrived at 6:46 a.m., where they discovered that agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations were also in pursuit, a department official said.

The search that unfolded over the next hour has sparked controversy in the Fullerton community. Residents say that police officers opened the gates for the federal immigration agents to enter the apartment property, an allegation that police officials denied. Instead, Fullerton police said that ICE cut the lock to the apartment complex.

Woodcrest Elementary School, meanwhile, was preparing for another school day; students began arriving for their before-school program at 7 a.m., 20 minutes into the search for an armed man.

Chad Hammitt, deputy superintendent of the Fullerton School District’s human resources division, said that he found out about the presence of immigration agents near the school from social media. He called Fullerton police at 7:14 a.m. to ask what was happening. Thirty minutes later, he received a call back.

“They told me a suspect was on the loose and that police were holding a perimeter.