Grief, anger, frustration and few answers as Santa Rosa community grapples with fatal stabbing of Montgomery High School student

A friend of the 16-year-old boy who was fatally stabbed Wednesday in a classroom on his Montgomery High School campus said he was in the front office with the student in the moments after the attack, when he saw the boy briefly lose consciousness.

At one point he heard the bloodied student, Jayden Jess Pienta, speak with his father on the phone.

“Hang in there,” Travis Pienta told his son.

“I love you, bud. Hang in there,” Cameron Gonzalez, 15, recalled Pienta’s father say again.

The poignant account was emblematic of the mourning, fear and frustration that hung over Santa Rosa’s second-oldest high school campus and surrounding community Thursday, a day after the worst incident of school violence in Sonoma County in a generation or more.

On Wednesday, Pienta, a former youth football and baseball player known by his friends as a stylish dresser, died from injuries suffered in the fight inside a classroom at Montgomery.

Pienta and another 16-year-old junior had walked into a full art class that was not theirs and engaged in a fight with a 15-year freshman, who retaliated moments later with the knife.

Pienta suffered three stab wounds — one to his chest and two to his back, police said — and he died after being taken to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.

The other 16-year-old suffered a stab wound to his hand.

The 15-year-old student was arrested within 40 minutes on suspicion of homicide and attempted homicide, as well as weapons charges. He remained in custody Thursday at the county’s Juvenile Justice Detention Center.

Many questions about the incident remain, including concerns that school officials knew about previous altercations between the 15-year-old suspect and the student who was stabbed in the hand during the fight.

On Thursday afternoon, Maria Cervantez, the mother of that boy, visited the makeshift high school memorial. She blasted school officials for not acting sooner.

Cervantez said school officials “pulled me in for a meeting” three weeks ago to let her know that her son had been assaulted by the same boy arrested in Wednesday’s stabbing.

“You guys had firsthand knowledge that this was going to happen, and you didn’t even stop it then,” she said she told school officials Thursday.

Cervantez was among those who visited the memorial Thursday.

At least 50 people attended a morning prayer walk hosted by New Vintage Church, a local Christian organization. The event offered support for the community in wake of the tragedy, said church leader Kevin Kubandi, a football coach at the high school.

During the morning prayer, Gonzalez, Pienta’s friend, prayed with a youth group leader, standing outside the school’s art room where Pienta was stabbed. As they walked away, Gonzalez pointed to blood on the floor.

He had been in the school’s main office just after 11 a.m. Wednesday when Pienta and the other student who was stabbed walked in, grasping their wounds.

He said Pienta fell onto him and his friend lost consciousness for a few seconds while he was in the school office. Gonzalez said he witnessed a school nurse perform CPR on Pienta and revive him.

He remembered the other injured student refusing care and asking that nurses take care of Pienta.

"He was focusing all of his attention on his friend, trying to get his friend better, even though (his hand) was bleeding everywhere," Gonzalez said.

“It was very horrific to see.”

Gonzalez’s mother, Amy Gonzalez, said Thursday’s prayer event was helpful to her son because it allowed him to talk about what had happened. She said he had been silent much of Wednesday.

“It’s been good that he has been able to be here and walk around, process things a little bit, see where this happened and talk to people,” she said.

Olivia Cruz, who said she and Pienta had been best friends since kindergarten, said she spoke to him last in the nurse’s office, where he was treated before being taken to the hospital.

"I'm angry, in shock, upset, sad, frustrated, every emotion you could feel when your best friend dies is what I feel today," Cruz said.

By 7:30 p.m. Thursday, charges had yet to be filed against the 15-year-old suspect. It’s also not known if the suspect will be tried as an adult.

Sonoma County District Attorney Carla Rodriguez issued a statement promising to be “exhaustive in our investigation and analysis of the incident.”

Rodriquez added her office will work closely with the Santa Rosa Police Department to identify and evaluate all available evidence.

“A decision to file charges will be based on the available information and relevant law,” she said. “As always, our goal is to seek justice for crime victims and the community at large.”

Rodriguez said her office will do its best to provide timely information, but that her ability to share details about the case will be limited because those involved are minors.

“We will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that justice is served so that our community can begin the healing process,“ Rodriguez said.

Back at the school, Tara Gordon, 40, of Santa Rosa, prayed for the kids involved in the stabbing, Pienta and for his family.

Though she said it felt selfish, she prayed for God to help her support her own son, a senior who had been in the classroom when Pienta and the other student was stabbed.

“I almost wish we were here to pray before this happened,” she said.

Following the group prayer, those in the crowd walked onto the school’s campus. Several quietly gathered near the central flagpole, where pictures of Pienta, flowers, candles and balloons were placed. A poster board scrawled with messages of love and grief was laid at the site.

“Sissy loves you buggy,” one message read.

“Jayden we love you! We will miss you every day with all our hearts,” said another.

Smaller groups diverged from the main crowd. They stopped along the courtyard, passed by classrooms or spent time talking among one another. Most went to the door of the art room where the fight took place that led to the stabbing.

One woman placed her hand on the door and bowed her head. She cried as she walked away. Others just stared, sometimes closing their eyes or looking down.

Gordon said her 17-year-old son did not attend the prayer walk because he wasn’t ready to return to school. She said she understood that — and she, too, wasn’t quite ready.

Jocelyne Chiquet, 18, who came to pick up her 14-year-old brother, said she was scared because her brother had talked about increasing violence or possible gang activity during school.

“There was a stabbing. That’s as physical as it can get,” she said. “That could have been my brother. That could have been anybody.”

Montgomery High School’s classes are canceled until Monday.

Students at other campuses in the city and across the county began organizing walkouts to raise concerns about school safety.

“A kid just died,” said Rosemary Cromwell, 17, a senior at Maria Carrillo High School, where students were planning a Friday walkout.

“There’s so simpler way to put it. There was an incident that happened during class at school in which now somebody has died … we’ve had threats and hoaxes in the past but this is the first time we’ve had anything seriously happen. School no longer feels safe.”

Montgomery students and students at other local high schools are expected to walk out of classes next week.

Parents of students at Montgomery echoed safety concerns Thursday.

Tara Gordon, 40, of Santa Rosa, said she feared the stabbing would spark more violence.

“I hope that these kids and the school can all grow and change from this and they implement some safety measures, that they let the Santa Rosa (Police Department) come,” she said. “Let it be a deterrent from anything else happening, any retaliation from this.”

Victor Cruz, 52, of Santa Rosa, said he is attempting to find counseling services for both of his kids.

His daughter, a junior, was in the classroom where Pienta was stabbed. His son, an eighth grader at Spring Lake Middle School, was stuck in lockdown Wednesday.

“If adults are feeling emotional, I can’t imagine what my kids are feeling,” he said. “There is a lack of trust right now.”

The Montgomery campus and nearby Church of the Roses were open for mental health support, meals, learning activities and other services for students and staff from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Santa Rosa City Schools Wellness Center on Lewis Road is to offer similar services.

Cruz said he wants the school to have people who “look like them and talk like them” come and mentor students, sharing experiences and telling them how their decisions now can impact their future.

“They need something to follow,” he said. “They need a map.”

A longtime Santa Rosa High School teacher — who spoke on condition of anonymity because the district has forbidden “unauthorized” employees from speaking to the media — said on Thursday that she and her colleagues around the school district have been worrying about school violence for some time.

“Teachers have been complaining for many months about an escalation of violence on campus. And what happened there (at Montgomery High School) could just as easily happen at any school in this district, Santa Rosa, (Maria) Carillo, Piner, Elsie (Allen),” she said.

“Little to no consequences are handed down when earlier indications of violence happen,” the teacher said. “We have these approaches that seem to involve sitting down and talking about the problem a lot — that is a solution some of the time.

“But when the behavior is persistent and those conversations aren’t changing things, we need to have other things we can do, like removing a child from a situation.”

Staff writers Jeremy Hay, Alana Minkler and Colin Atagi contributed to this report. You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A typo in the potential charges facing the 15-year-old suspect has been corrected. He was arrested on suspicion of homicide, attempted homicide and weapons offenses.