Santee, CA (special) -- Members of the Jewish community responded earlier this week to the tragedy at Santana High School in Santee where a 15-year-old student, Charles Andrew Williams, fatally wounded two fellow students and wounded 13 other persons, including two adults.

Sheriff Bill Kolender, whose department has jurisdiction over law enforcement within the Santee city limits, went quickly to the scene shortly after the Monday, March 5, shooting spree that claimed the lives of Randy Gordon, 17, and Brian Zuckor, 14. 

By the time Kolender arrived, the suspect had surrendered to an off-duty policeman and to a deputy sheriff who had answered the school's distress call within two minutes, and persuaded Williams to drop his still-loaded gun and to surrender.

Praising the two officers, Kolender said: "I do believe that if it had not been for the conduct of thepeople involved... It would have been even worse."

Although none of the people directly involved in the shooting--neither the young gunman nor the victims--were believed to be Jewish, Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal of Tifereth Israel Synagogue went to the crisis center at Sonrise Community Church in Santee the day after the shooting in case anyone wanted to speak to a rabbi. 

"There were a number of other clergy there," Rosenthal said. "The only person to approach me was a psychologist, who was there to help and also was Jewish."

Tifereth Israel Synagogue in the eastern portion of San Diego is the synagogue geographically closest to Santee.

Not only students of Santana High School needed counseling; it was available to students in private and public schools throughout San Diego County.

San Diego Police Officer Jim Poole went to the San Carlos campus of the San Diego Jewish Academy, where he spoke with 4th and 5th graders and answered their questions.

One of the most disturbing facts about the shootings was that Williams had said to his friends over the weekend that he planned to shoot people at the school, then told them he was only joking. No one reported the conversation to authorities.

Poole, who like Kolender is a member of the Jewish community, urged the San Diego Jewish Academy students to tell authorities if they know someone has a gun. He said that such important information is much different than "tattling."

The police officer urged the students to always "be safe" and to "use your head" in any dangerous situation, according to Beth Klareich, a youth director at Tifereth Israel Synagogue, where the Jewish Academy leases classrooms. 

Tina Malka, coordinator of the "Confronting Anti-Semitism" program run by the San Diego regional Anti-Defamation League said one of the students who was wounded in the attack, 17-year-old Raymond Serrato, had been a leader at Santana High School in setting up a Student Human Relations Club and in helping ADL about four months ago to present a "Names Can Really Hurt Us" program at an assembly.

More recently, Serrato and his mother spoke to ADL's Steinberg Young Leadership Group at the Doubletree Hotel, Malka said. "He is a good, good kid," Malka commented. "He is a positive kid. When he introduced his mother, he caller her his best friend. Despite the trauma of what he has been through, I don't think it will stop him" in his commitment to human relations, she said.