Opinion: School shooter resentencing sends wrong message

Nearly 25 years ago, a student walked onto the campus of Santana High School and opened fire. Two students were killed. Thirteen others were shot and injured. A community was forever changed.

I do not write this as a distant observer. I am a Santana High School alumna (class of 1997). Today, I serve on the Board of Education for the Santee School District, governing the schools that now educate the children of those who lived through that tragedy.

That perspective matters.

Because the recent resentencing decision that could lead to the release of Santana High School shooter Andy Williams — currently under appeal — should alarm every Californian, especially those who write and vote on our laws.

This was not a moment of adolescent recklessness. It was a calculated act of mass violence carried out on a school campus. Williams reloaded and continued firing. Two students never made it home. Many others carry lifelong physical and emotional scars.

The parole board itself has already determined that Williams remains a risk to public safety. Yet under current California law, that finding is effectively irrelevant.

Legislative changes passed over the last decade — and expanded through the courts, including extensions treating lengthy juvenile sentences as equivalents to life without parole — have created a system in which sentences once understood to reflect the gravity of mass murder can be undone, without a judge affirmatively determining that the offender no longer poses a danger, and without meaningful weight given to victims or long-term community harm.

As a school board trustee, this outcome directly undermines the most basic promise we make to families: that student safety comes first. We govern policies on campus security, threat assessment, and violence prevention. We are expected to weigh risk, plan for worst-case scenarios, and act with seriousness and foresight.

Yet what message does the state send to parents and students when a school shooter can be released with fewer safeguards than many nonviolent offenders?

It is an uncomfortable but unavoidable truth that many school shooters are young. That reality makes accountability more important, not less. When California signals that even the most extreme acts of school violence may eventually be reconsidered and reduced, deterrence erodes — and schools become collateral damage in the process.

This is not a rejection of rehabilitation. It is a demand for balance. Compassion without accountability is not justice. And when the victims are children, accountability must be lasting.

The Santana community has lived with this pain for nearly a quarter-century. Families rebuilt their lives believing that the punishment reflected the severity of the crime. They trusted that some lines, once crossed, carried permanent consequences.

That trust is now at risk of being shattered.

California lawmakers must act. At a minimum, any resentencing or early release involving a school-based mass shooting should require a judicial finding — on the record — that the offender no longer poses a threat to public safety, with full participation from victims and impacted school communities. Crimes of mass violence committed on school campuses are not ordinary offenses. They demand heightened safeguards, not policy loopholes.

Those who supported these resentencing laws should also be willing to publicly explain how this potential outcome serves students, victims or public safety. Californians deserve clarity about which policies could allow this release — and whether lawmakers believe school shootings should ever be treated as anything less than the most serious crimes imaginable.

As a governing official entrusted with student safety, I owe Santana families better — and the legislators who passed this policy owe them answers. There is no moral or legal justification for leniency in cases of mass school shootings. This law must be revised to draw an absolute line: mass violence on a school campus is not eligible for resentencing. Protect students. Full stop.

Thill is a Santee School District trustee and Santana High School alumna.