Active shooter reported at the O.C. School of the Arts in DTSA – New Santa Ana

UPDATE: A reader has reported that the scene has been cleared by the police. Initially police thought that a large caliber gun was fired near OCSA. However now the school is telling parents that a vehicle had a loud backfire in the area. The O.C. Register also has reported that the backfire was the cause of the panic.

Readers are reporting that there is an active shooter at the Orange County School of the Arts, which is located in downtown Santa Ana.

Apparently the students have been texting friends and family about the situation as well.

Multiple sirens were heard after 12 noon today throughout north Santa Ana. Most likely a multi agency response has turned out at OCSA including the SAPD and likely the OC Sheriff as well.

There was a bomb threat at this school on Jan. 24 of this year. It was phoned in and turned out to be a hoax, according to ABC News.

Two graduates of OCSA have been in the news in recent weeks. Sam Woodward is accused of killing Blaze Bernstein, who was both gay and Jewish. Woodward has been alleged to be a new-Nazi with great animus towards gays and Jews.

Two graduates of OCSA have been in the news in recent weeks. Sam Woodward is accused of killing Blaze Bernstein, who was both gay and Jewish. Woodward has been alleged to be a new-Nazi with great animus towards gays and Jews. Woodward is accused of stabbing Bernstein to death more than six years ago and burying his body near a Lake Forest park.

The Orange County Board of Education on Friday, Feb. 17, called for an independent investigation of the Orange County School of the Arts, which faces three lawsuits alleging sexual abuse, according to the O.C. Register.

Here are the three cases filed in Orange County Superior Court:

• In a lawsuit filed on Sept. 22, a former student alleged that OCSA founder Ralph Opacic sexually assaulted him on campus during the 2003-2004 academic year; the lawsuit names Opacic, the school and the Santa Ana Unified School District, which at the time had issued the school’s charter.
• In the second lawsuit filed on Sept. 30, a former student alleged he was sexually assaulted from approximately 1991 through 1995, beginning when he was a 14-year-old freshman at Los Alamitos High School. The lawsuit was amended earlier this year to specifically name Opacic, the Orange County School of the Arts and Los Alamitos Unified.
• A third lawsuit, filed on Dec. 12, accuses Bijon Watson, then the head of the school’s jazz conservatory, of sexually assaulting a former student in 2006 and 2007. Watson was previously charged but ultimately acquitted of criminal charges stemming from similar allegations by the same student. A jury in 2008 found him guilty of three misdemeanor counts of child annoyance, but the convictions were reversed two years later on appeal. Following a 2012 retrial, Watson — a Grammy-winning trumpet player who is no longer at the school — was found not guilty of two counts of child annoyance, and a third count was dismissed. That lawsuit names Watson, the school and Santa Ana Unified.

Coincidentally last Friday marked the 25th anniversary of the Columbine School Shooting. The perpetrators, twelfth-grade students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered twelve students and one teacher. Ten of the twelve students killed were in the school library, where Harris and Klebold subsequently died by suicide. Twenty-one additional people were injured by gunshots, and gunfire was also exchanged with the police.