Education

RICHMOND (CBS 5 / AP) ― The gang rape and beating of a 15-year-old girl on Richmond High School grounds after her homecoming dance was horrific enough. But even more shocking, police said, was that up to 25 people watched and did nothing to stop it.

The attack over the weekend rattled the crime-ridden city of Richmond, where one police official called it one of the most heinous crimes he had ever seen. Some students have already left the school district in response to the attack.

"It's not safe there at all," said 16-year-old Jennie Steinberg, whose mother let her transfer out of the school district Tuesday. "I'm not going back."

The victim, a sophomore, had left the dance and was drinking in a school courtyard with a group of students when she was attacked, police said.

Two suspects were in custody as of Tuesday and police said more arrests were expected soon. Late Tuesday, SWAT teams were preparing to make more arrests as police are also offering a $20,000 reward they hope will bring more people forward with any information.

Investigators indicated that as many as seven to ten males ranging in age from 15 to mid-20s attacked the girl for more than two hours at a dimly lit area near benches Saturday night. More than a dozen people saw the rape without notifying police -- some apparently laughing and taking pictures of it with their cell phones, police sources told CBS 5.

The girl was found naked from the waist down near a picnic table. She remained hospitalized Tuesday with non-life threatening injuries.

"This was a barbaric act. I still cannot get my head around the fact that numerous people either watched, walked away or participated in her assault," Richmond police Lt. Mark Gagan said Tuesday. "It's one of the most disturbing crimes in my 15 years as a police officer."

Manuel Ortega, a 19-year-old former student, was arrested after trying to flee the scene. He was being held on $800,000 bail for investigation of rape and robbery. A 15-year-old student also was booked late Monday night on one count of sexual assault, Gagan said.

Even though he said as many as 20 people were witnesses, Gagan said officials were still trying to determine the exact number of people involved.

"I'm confident that the list will expand and at the end of our investigation we will get a clear indication of who was there and who did what," Gagan said. 

Richmond, population 120,000, has dealt with its share of vicious crimes in recent years, and the school district recently approved installing new surveillance cameras after a series of violent crimes. Richmond High School came under fire last year in a CBS 5 Investigates report which found most of the school's existing security cameras had been broken for years.

Gagan said the girl left the dance and was walking to meet her father for a ride home when a classmate invited her to join a group drinking in the courtyard. The girl had consumed a large amount of alcohol by the time the assault began, police said. Gagan said the girl's father tried to call her cell phone, but no one answered.

Gagan said police received a tip about a possible assault on campus from a young woman who heard two males bragging about it. Officers found the girl semi-conscious near a picnic table. 

Marin Trujillo, a spokesman for the West Contra Costa Unified School District, said there were four police officers and 15 school site supervisors monitoring the dance. He said there were no problems during the dance inside the school gym, calling it "a success."

But Trujillo called the rape outside on school grounds "a tragic incident."

"We wished this had never happened. This was such a heinous crime," Trujillo said. "We are all going to learn from this."

Sources told CBS 5 that two school security guards who typically would have patrolled the school grounds were sent home about a half an hour before the attack occured because officials wanted to avoid incuring overtime costs.

Student Joseph Machado, 16, said the mood inside the school was tense Tuesday as officers were questioning fellow students. Two squad cars were parked outside the main entrance, and school security teams were patrolling the grounds in golf carts.

"Some of my friends were saying, 'What if that happened to me?"' said Machado, whose parents didn't allow him to go to the dance. "This school, this city already has a bad reputation and now this makes it worse."

Richmond is known as one nation's most dangerous cities. In 2007, Richmond had 47 homicides, and the murder rate led the state of California for cities with populations of 100,000 or more, surpassing Los Angeles and Oakland.

That number dropped to 27 in 2008, but has spiked to 44 killings so far this year, amid drug dealing and gang activity that has engulfed the town, Gagan said.

In one well-known murder case a few years back, a student was shot outside the high school, ran inside and died in the then-principal's hands, Trujillo said.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)