The assassin checked his weapon and the time. If he met with his accomplice before first period then there might be time to make the kill and grab breakfast before second period.

The assassin? FUHS senior Carter Salinas.

His ally? Senior Moy Tucay.

Their target? Fellow FUHS senior Jack Golla.

The weapon? A green plastic water gun.

When Salinas and Tucay met up on Pomona Avenue just west of the campus, they weren’t looking for trouble. They’d teamed up for Senior Assassin—a non-school sponsored live-action game wherein seniors shoot water guns at other seniors on their lists. Seniors paid $5 to play, and the senior that lasts the longest and with the most water gun “kills” gets the cash.

Because Golla was on Salinas’s list and Tucay was on Golla’s list, Salinas and Tucay formed an alliance. They agreed not to assassinate each other to get Golla.

Tucay’s blue car was already parked on Pomona Avenue on the morning of March 28 when, before first period, Salinas arrived in his white car and parked in front of Tucay. Salinas grabbed his green plastic water gun before he exited his car and climbed into the passenger seat of Tucay’s car.

“We weren’t expecting to ambush Jack before school,” said Salinas, “but I knew Jack didn’t have a first period, so I grabbed the gun in case we ran into him.” The pair left in Tucay’s car to get breakfast.

Salinas didn’t realize that a parent had spotted him, and, mistaking the plastic toy for a real gun, the witness reported seeing a gun to school officials. Principal Jon Caffrey called for a campus wide lockdown and contacted the Fullerton Police Department.

Caffrey stood on the corner of Pomona and Chapman, urgently ushering students into nearby classrooms. Caffrey said he didn’t make a connection between the parent report and the game. 

“I didn’t even think about the Senior Assassin angle, and I’m glad I didn’t because knowing that might have dulled my senses a bit,” Caffrey said. “If we don’t have all the answers, we’re always going to take the most cautious route. We can scale back if it turns out to be nothing, but we can’t go the other way. You can’t start with a relaxed response and then suddenly shift into a lockdown while students are leaving. I’ll always err on the side of extreme caution.”

Caffrey said that, based on the witness’s report, he was also looking for gray and green student cars, when he should have been looking for white and blue cars. 

Campus Resource Officer Adan Muñoz was headed to the FUHS campus when he got the call about a possible weapon near campus.

“My first thought was, ‘Where is the witness?’” Muñoz said. “We want to make sure the information we get is directly from the source, not secondhand.”

When the police arrived, they persuaded the witness to return to campus and point to the car the witness saw. The FPD determined that the reported cars were actually blue and white, and with the witness’s help FPD found the white car parked on Pomona. Forty minutes after the original call, campus superviser Shaun Hill recognized the actual white car that was involved, and he called Carter Salinas. Hill recognized his car, having coached Salinas in baseball his freshman and sophomore year.

Salinas and Tucay innocently drove around town in a blue 1998 Honda Civic LX, but they realized that the school was on lockdown when they returned to campus during first period. They hunkered down at the tennis court parking lot, having no idea that they were the suspects that had caused the lockdown.

“When Coach Shaun called me to ask where I was and what I was wearing,” Salinas said, “I was honestly confused at the whole thing.”

Students are strictly prohibited from playing on campus. Tucay and Salinas were not punished by school officials because they were playing off-campus. The police searched, questioned and then released the two students to return to class.

After the false-alarm, the Senior Assassin game was immediately suspended. The organizers officially canceled the game April 21 and issued payouts from the $1,200 pot to the top scorers.

Sgt. Eric Bridges of the FPD said in a phone interview that even though water guns themselves are not illegal, it’s important to understand the sensitivity especially near a school. 

“The students weren’t on campus,” Bridges said. “But it would be even better to have more distance. Maybe play the game in a nearby park.”

Although the call for a lockdown turned out to be a false alarm, Caffrey said he was concerned that not all students and staff followed lockdown procedures.

 “I think getting every staff member to understand the importance of when we run a drill, to not become numb to the fact that we do drills. We do drills for a reason,” Caffrey said. “In a world where things happen at schools, anytime we go to a drill, we want people to take it 100% seriously and not ever sit back and relax. So just be patient and wait until we get the call that everything is okay.”

Principal secretary Benigna Rodriguez said that there were seven substitute teachers on campus that day. When senior Hamza Cabrer realized that his substitute teacher did not know what to do, he sprang into action, locking the door and shutting the curtain. 

“I was prepared,” Cabrer said. “I’ve always thought about what I would do in that situation. So instead of cowering in fear, I thought I’d step up for my fellow classmates.”

A flow of false information also created student confusion and anxiety.

“My classroom had no sense of urgency, considering it is mostly freshman in my first period,” said one senior. “They were all laughing and making fun of the entire situation. One person said they saw someone outside with a gun. There was a different rumor that someone robbed the McDonalds at gunpoint and ran onto the campus to hide.”

Someone also posted on social media a photo of Tucay being searched and questioned by police. The photo was misleading and suggested Tucay was being arrested.

Fullerton Police Department Public Information Specialist Kristy Wells said that one way to avoid misinformation is to follow the FPD on Instagram for quick updates. During the March 28 lockdown, FPD posted updates about the situation. Students can follow the account on instagram @fullerton_pd.

The lockdown was especially stressful for music director Troy Trimble who was hosting a festival that day. He had over 450 students (mostly middle schoolers) and about 50 adult music directors and chaperones. Guests were spread out among the Little Theater, Black Box Theater,  Auditorium and gym.

“Working alongside my student volunteers, I had to essentially bring hundreds of people together,” Trimble said. “But I think the hardest part was getting everyone to treat it like a serious threat.”

Associate editor David Padgett contributed to this story.