‘Just unimaginable’: School shooting shakes Oroville community familiar with tragedy

A shooting at a small, rural faith-based school in Northern California has rung a familiar chord of tragedy for a neighboring community with a recent history of devastation.

“People are very devastated, they’re very sad, disappointed,” said Oroville resident Allisa Whitaker.

Two kindergartners, boys ages 5 and 6, were hospitalized with critical wounds Wednesday after an alleged gunman apparently opened fire at Feather River Adventist School before fatally shooting himself.

The identities of the gunman and children were not released as of Wednesday morning, and both boys were in “extremely critical condition” as of Wednesday night, said Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea during a news conference. The investigation into the suspected shooter and possible motivations continues as of Thursday morning.

The small school, alongside Highway 70 near Oroville and Palermo, and affiliated with the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, has about three dozen students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

Whitaker has a 5-year-old son at Stanford Avenue Elementary School in Oroville. She said that the school provided extra resources for students and that there were police patrols planned.

Still, it was difficult to send him back after learning of Wednesday’s shooting.

“It’s very disappointing, it’s very heartwrenching,” she said. “It’s hard, because I don’t want to put him back in the school but I have no other option.”

“Anything can happen,” she added. “People prove that every day.”

Tragedy for Oroville

Oroville, with a population of roughly 20,000, has had its share of incidents rattle the community in recent years.

“Oroville, it’s not a foreign concept to have tragedy strike here,” Shawn Webber, Oroville City Councilmember, told reporters Thursday morning.

“The Camp Fire, other fires, we’ve had massive issues in the past, but nothing like this,” he added. “So this is just another opportunity — and I don’t mean opportunity in a good way — but it’s an opportunity in the face of tragedy to show them how Oroville overcomes and we triumph.”

The Camp Fire in 2018 devastated parts of Butte County, including Paradise, a city with a substantial Seventh-Day Adventist footprint relative to its size. In 2017, fear that the Oroville Dam would fail caused evacuation orders for almost 190,000 people from Butte, Yuba and Sutter Counties, although in that case the dam held.

After Wednesday’s shooting, Webber said there are community plans in the works to organize fundraising efforts and support for those affected.

“This is devastating for these families that are involved so we want to, in the wake of what was pushed onto us, we want to push back with love and healing and to undergird them, wrap our arms around them, lift them up and show them this is how we do it as a community,” Webber said.

Neighboring towns

Teddi Hunter, an Oroville resident, described her response to the shooting in one word.

“Sadness,” she said.

She said she has local friends in the Seventh-Day Adventist community and knows some whom had sent their children to Feather River Adventist School in the past.

“Who’s sitting around waiting for it? Nobody I know,” she said. “It’s a sad world. I hope the kids are OK. I just pray to God the kids are OK.”

Shirley Lam, 50, moved to the small town of Gridley — about 6 miles from the shooting — from Canada several months ago and has a 16-year-old daughter enrolled in her first year at nearby Gridley High School.

“I’m a bit shocked because it’s a small town,” she said.

Coming from Canada, she said the idea of a school shooting happening at all, let alone in a small town, was a concern for her as a parent.

“I am concerned,” she said about having a child in school. “It seems to happen often here.”

Other nearby residents shared their shock at that kind of tragedy happening near their own communities.

“These kinds of things are just horrible and it’s something that should never happen at a school,” said Nadeem Shawareb, of Biggs. “The worst thing is that it’s an adult that went in there and did that to children. Sometimes kids do really stupid, stupid things. But when an adult does it it’s just unimaginable.”

This story was originally published December 5, 2024 at 1:40 PM.