The suspect's family says the two boys were arguing inside the gym just before the fire drill. They say a teacher intervened and had the suspect sit down on the ground, but the fighting continued, and by the time they reached the neighboring park, tempers were flaring.
"His eyes started getting watery, and his face got all red, and then that's when I knew he got mad," said Reyna Perez, a student.
Perez says she was standing near the suspect in a P.E. class moments before the alarm sounded for a campus fire drill, when he was approached by several boys who were taunting and teasing him.
"We were in the gym on the bleachers, and then they were telling him stuff and laughing at him," said Perez.
She and her mother say a teacher spotted the altercation and told the two to behave themselves, but believe the instructor should've done more to prevent violence from breaking out.
"When that teacher seen that, it could've been prevented. She should've pulled him aside, and pull him in the office, and said 'what's going on?'" said Lupez Martinez, a family member.
They're not the only ones who believe school administrators should've stepped in.
"I felt like this was going to happen for quite a while and no one would listen to me," said John Walsh, a teacher.
Walsh says student discipline is a serious issue at Los Banos Junior High School and believes the district needs to address it from the top down.
"In the past we've had multiple issues with kids threatening other kids, also staff members; we get cursed out pretty much regularly, and nothing is really ever done about it," said Walsh.
But Superintendent Steve Tietjen says while the district is working on improving its discipline and safety procedures, students also need to do their part to keep each other safe. He says staff will begin talking with students Monday morning to change the culture on campus.
"The reason for that comes from the fact that we understand that at least one student heard a threat and saw the weapon on Thursday, and that student didn't believe it was serious at the time -- that's what he reports now -- and he's very upset that he didn't bring it to authorities sooner," said Tietjen.
Tietjen says that the teachers who rendered aid to the victim and tracked down the suspect to a nearby field two blocks away should be commended for talking him down to the ground and reporting his location to police. He says the district is looking into doing random searches on students, and will beef up its police presence come Monday morning.
In the meantime, we are told that the victim is expected to make a full recovery.
