Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer

Dr. Martha Kanter, left, presents Michelle Houde, center, and Kelly Bennett, gifts in appreciation for their actions in the thwarting of an allegedly planned bomb and gun attack on De Anza Community College. A scholarship fund for Houde, a freshman at De Anza College and Bennett, a freshman at San Jose State, has been created to help the two girls continue their undergraduate education.

De Anza holds meeting on bomb scare

Police, psychologists speak at campus

By KEVIN FAYLE

In order to cover the facts and lingering issues about the campus' Jan. 30 bomb scare, De Anza Community College held two town hall meetings during the afternoon and evening of Feb. 6, at 3 and 6 p.m. respectively.

The meetings took place in the Flint Center, and offered community members, and especially De Anza students, staff and faculty, a chance to hear official accounts of the events of Jan. 30.

The audience also had the opportunity to listen to psychologists address the feelings that may linger in the aftermath of such an event. The psychologists also discussed ways the community can better support youth, thus possibly avoiding similar events in the future.

Kelly Bennett and Michelle Houde, the Longs Drugstore clerks who notified the San Jose Police Department of the bomb photos, attended both meetings.

The meetings came in the wake of the discovery on Jan. 29, of an alleged plot by a De Anza student to attack the campus center, and the subsequent evacuation of the college on Jan. 30.

De Anza President Dr. Martha Kanter opened the meeting in the afternoon with a short speech expressing her relief that the attack did not occur. "We're all very thankful to be here," she said. She thanked Bennett and Houde, who she said "took the responsibility to act on what they saw" and "set an example of the values that allow our society to flourish."

Bennett addressed the attendees on behalf of herself and Houde, thanking the community for all its support given to the pair. "We're both glad the bombing didn't occur and so many lives were saved," she said.

Kanter then described the outpouring of letters thanking the two for their actions, and expressed De Anza's intent to collect them all in a book for the two young women. She also said the college intended to hold a formal event to publicly thank them, as well as establishing scholarships in their names to allow them to pursue their educations. The college welcomes donations to the scholarship fund from the public, she said.

Kanter then deferred to the panel, which included Sheriff Laurie Smith, De Anza Vice President of Finance and College Services Mike Brandy, psychologist Dr. Bob McIntyre, and Executive Director of the Santa Clara County Filipino Youth Coalition Dr. Arao-Nguyen.

Smith opened by going over the events in the case, from the moment when Bennett and Houde first saw the photographs, to the law enforcement agencies searching De Anza for bombs and pronounced the campus safe.

Mike Brandy then recounted the events from the college's perspective, describing the process involved in evacuating the campus. The entire evacuation took only one hour, he said. Brandy thanked the staff who remained on campus to assist with the search, and the student officers of the campus security force, who chose to remain and help the law enforcement agencies.

Brandy hoped the scare would act as a learning experience in the event of any future emergencies. "The [emergency] plan itself is not any good without the training of staff," he said.

McIntyre spoke about the effects of traumatic situations on people. He emphasized that the effects of stressful situations can manifest themselves in subtle ways, and that people should express their feelings about the event as the best way to work through them.

McIntyre added these feelings are a normal reaction to something like the bomb scare, and that people should recognize that fact, and not consider themselves abnormal for experiencing them. However, he urged people to contact a health professional if extreme stress persists.

Finally, Arao-Nguyen addressed the topic of the experience of youth during the transition to adulthood. She stressed that parents need to remain involved in their children's lives, and offer them support throughout the turbulent process of maturation.

Arao-Nguyen advised parents to stop demanding communication from their children, and instead share information about their own lives in order to develop an understanding with their teen. She emphasized the importance of addressing the level of violence that most children see in the media today.

After the members of the panel concluded their remarks, they took questions from the audience.

A former professor of Al DeGuzman, the De Anza student suspected of the alleged plot to bomb the campus, stood up and asked how she could have picked up on his rage and isolation. The professor said she taught DeGuzman in a social problems class, and that he never exhibited any signs of violent intentions toward the school or his fellow students.

McIntyre responded, "The people who do these things are the people who can get away with it."

After the event's conclusion, Bennett and Houde answered questions from the media about their actions and the response they have received.

"It's overwhelming," Houde said. "Everyone's been very supportive. I'm just grateful that nothing happened."

Houde, a student at De Anza, says she would not have been in the campus center during the time DeGuzman allegedly planned to attack, but "I had friends, coworkers, and neighbors who would have been there. It's really scary to think about what would have happened if he hadn't dropped off those pictures."

For Bennett, the meeting represented her first chance to hear directly from members of the De Anza community. "Someone gave me a different view: they said, 'think of how many generations of parents and children you saved,' " she said. "It's true, too, if you think about it."

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