Ridgway High School shooter sentenced to 2 years in Sonoma County custody

A Santa Rosa youth who shot and wounded a classmate just outside Ridgway High School in 2019 was resentenced Monday to two years in Sonoma County’s youth treatment facility, only the second such local cases to be adjudicated under new laws realigning California’s juvenile justice system.

Jose Guillermo Santos-Buenrostro was 17 on Oct. 22, 2019, when he shot and wounded a 16-year-old classmate on a sidewalk outside the central Santa Rosa campus. A judge originally sentenced him to as many as five years in juvenile custody.

The shooting caused a lockdown of 11,700 students on three campuses – Ridgway and the adjacent Santa Rosa High and Santa Rosa Junior College – and community panic over the evolving situation as SWAT officers combed the central Santa Rosa area looking for the shooter.

Buenrostro, now 19, was arrested about 90 minutes later inside a classroom. He enlisted a friend to leave campus with the gun in a backpack, which police found later in bushes about three miles from campus. The victim, Jorge Lozano, was driven by another student to the hospital with two gunshot wounds and was released later that night.

Sonoma County prosecutors initially filed attempted murder and other felony charges and sought to prosecute Buenrostro as an adult, exposing him to potentially two life prison sentences if convicted.

Sonoma County Juvenile Court Judge Kenneth Gnoss denied the move and ruled that Buenrostro, 85 days shy of his 18th birthday, should remain in the juvenile court system because of his age, lack of serious criminal history and abusive childhood.

After Buenrostro admitted charges of assault with a firearm and other enhancements, Gnoss sentenced him to juvenile confinement “not to exceed five years.”

But as the case was being adjudicated, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two new laws that will completely revamp the juvenile justice system.

One law moves juvenile justice from the Division of Juvenile Justice inside the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which oversees the adult prison system, to the Department of Youth and Community Restoration within the California Health and Human Services Agency.

The other requires the closure of state youth detention facilities by June 30, 2023, and transfers youthful offenders being held now to the control of county-based custody systems.

Debra Hoffmann, Buenrostro’s attorney, asked the judge to recall her client’s sentence and reconsider it in light of the new laws that focus more on rehabilitation of minors in a local setting than punishment in state facilities.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Brian Staebell argued Monday that Buenrostro should have been prosecuted as an adult because of the seriousness of the crime, for which the young man armed himself, brought a loaded gun onto campus, engaged Lozano – with whom he’d had troubles before – shot him, chased him and fired again, and then tried to blend in with other students during the lockdown.

When Buenrostro was arrested, Staebell said, he told police “I was just doing me.”

The safety of the community must weigh heavily, he argued.

“It’s just…a bridge too far, going from the chance that the minor was going to potentially serve two life sentences in adult court to the fact that he’s going to be housed at the juvenile hall for a period of time in a program we know very little to nothing about,” he said.

Details of Sonoma County’s Secure Youth Treatment Facility and what services it will offer are still being crafted by a committee of justice system leaders.

The only other case locally to be sentenced under the new laws is that of Joseph LaFond, 17, who pleaded guilty to armed robbery in an incident in which his co-defendant shot a woman at point blank range, Staebell said. The woman survived.

Hoffmann argued that Buenrostro admitted his actions, for which he is not proud, and has made great progress in the two years he’s been housed at the county’s juvenile detention center on the Los Guilicos campus. He has graduated from high school and is taking junior college classes, she said.

“He’s using this to take full advantage of all the services (the facility) offers, which is exactly why, again, the Legislature changed the law and said, let’s on a local level, offer the right services to these youths who are still growing,” she said. “For the safety of the community, we should do all we can to rehabilitate the minor so he can reintegrate back into the community safely.”

The new two-year sentence is a baseline, Gnoss said, and Buenrostro will return to court every six months for progress checks. After two years, he could be ordered to remain in custody or begin receiving “step-down services” in anticipation of release. His individualized rehabilitation plan will be discussed in court next month, with the first six-month review in March.

Staebell said he hopes Buenrostro truly works at changing the direction of his life.

“We hope that Jose proves us wrong. We have no interest in Jose doing anything but being successful,” he said.

Buenrostro, dressed in a white T-shirt and olive green pants, didn’t speak during the hearing Monday, but he gently nodded his head as the prosecutor spoke.

“We are very hopeful,” Staebell continued, “that he takes this to heart that he continues to do everything possible to turn his life around and become a productive member of society.”

You can reach Staff Writer Lori A. Carter at 707-521-5470 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.