A student was found carrying a gun at Santee High School in South Los Angeles on Wednesday, the first day of the new school year, triggering a lockdown that lasted into midmorning before campus life resumed. The discovery followed an altercation between students that prompted staff to conduct an administrative search, according to the Los Angeles Unified School District.
The lockdown at the campus on Maple Avenue in the northern part of historic South-Central was lifted around 10:45 a.m., and students went on with their school day, as reported by KTLA. The student was taken into custody without incident, and the district said it notified the student's parents. LAUSD has not disclosed any identifying details about the student involved.
Why a Fight Led to a Search Instead of a Metal Detector
The search that turned up the weapon happened only after the altercation between students, not as part of routine screening at the door. That is because LAUSD's Board of Education voted in June 2019 to eliminate daily random handheld metal detector searches across secondary campuses, a policy that took effect in July 2020 following advocacy campaigns that argued the practice criminalized minority students, according to the Los Angeles Times. School administrators and police retained authority to conduct targeted administrative searches whenever there is reasonable suspicion of a rule or law violation, which is the standard that applied Wednesday.
Santee's history with gun violence predates this week's scare. In September 2021, a 16-year-old student was shot and wounded in the leg during an after-school altercation outside the school's football field, an incident that also forced a temporary lockdown at nearby Maple Primary Center, the Times reported at the time.
A Statewide Felony Exposure for Campus Firearms
Under California Penal Code § 626.9, the Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1995, possessing a firearm directly on the grounds of a public K-12 school is generally classified as a felony carrying a potential state prison sentence of two to five years, according to a legal explainer from Southwest Legal. It remains unclear what specific type of firearm was recovered at Santee or whether it was loaded, and no charges against the student have been publicly detailed.
LAUSD said in a statement that it “takes seriously” the safety and security of students and campuses, and that Wednesday morning's incident can serve as an opportunity for parents and guardians to discuss good judgment and avoiding dangerous activities. Safety concerns can be reported to school staff or local authorities, and emergency services can be reached by dialing 911.
Part of a Broader Pattern Across LAUSD Campuses
Santee's lockdown fits into a recurring pattern across the district this year. Just two months earlier, Los Angeles High School was placed on an hours-long lockdown after a road-rage conflict spilled onto campus and a minor was detained on suspicion of bringing a firearm onto school grounds, as Hoodline previously reported. Law enforcement searched that Mid-Wilshire campus for hours before lifting the lockdown, according to CBS Los Angeles.
District-wide numbers show the scale of the challenge. At least four firearms were confiscated from students on LAUSD campuses within the first month of the 2024-2025 school year alone, coinciding with safety records showing a 45% multi-year surge in reported campus incidents involving weapons, threats, or physical aggression between 2017 and 2023, per LAist. The outlet noted LAUSD recorded 1,197 weapons-related incidents across its campuses during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Budget adjustments in 2020 and 2021 reduced sworn school police presence, prompting LAUSD to expand its Safe Passage programs, which use unarmed staff and community partners to monitor perimeter streets during arrival and dismissal, according to CBS News. Sworn officers no longer remain permanently stationed inside high school hallways full-time, leaving administrative searches and tools like the district's Los Angeles Schools Anonymous Reporting app to fill much of the gap when a threat surfaces mid-day.
Santee Education Complex opened in 2005 as the first new four-year high school built in LAUSD in more than 35 years, constructed at 1921 South Maple Avenue to relieve severe overcrowding in historic South-Central. The campus enrolled 1,469 students during the 2025-2026 school year, with more than 93% identifying as Hispanic or Latino, according to the California Department of Education.
