COURT RULING FAVORS STUDENT THREAT REPORT IS PROTECTED.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

QUARTZ HILL - An appellate court affirmed that a former Quartz Hill High School student can't be sued for telling officials a week after the Columbine High School massacre that a schoolmate reported he wanted to ``kill people.''

A three-judge panel from the state Court of Appeals' Second Appellate District Division 5 agreed with a 2001 Superior Court decision that the girl's statements were made in the context of an official investigation and were protected by state law from lawsuits.

The 13-page opinion, written by appellate Justice Richard Mosk, said the judge was correct in throwing out the defamation lawsuit under a state law that guards against lawsuits intended to inhibit citizens from exercising political rights - called Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.

Under state law, statements made in investigations conducted by schools or in relation to judicial proceedings or potential judicial proceedings are absolutely immune from lawsuits, except in lawsuits for malicious prosecution, the opinion said.

The lawsuit was filed over incidents that happened in April 1999, days after two teenagers shot and killed 12 students and a teacher in Littleton, Colo.

While Quartz Hill High School officials were investigating a report about students having pipe bombs, a girl said she overheard a schoolmate say that ``we want to kill people, we're sick of them'' and that later, after she told a vice principal, the boy threatened to ``get'' her, records show.

The justices dismissed the lawsuit's argument that the girl's statements to school and sheriff's officials were not a valid ``exercise'' of free speech rights and that she was not telling the truth.

The justices also dismissed an invasion of privacy claim against the Antelope Valley Union High School District and Los Angeles County, which were accused of ``parading'' the boy around the Quartz Hill High campus in handcuffs to allow news photographers to photograph him.

``To the extent (the boy) is asserting that the school and the county placed him in a false light by allowing him to be seen as the subject of an investigation into terrorist threats, his argument fails because he was not placed in a false light - he was the subject of the investigation,'' the opinion said.

The youth accused of making the threats was placed on six months of probation, although the criminal charges were dismissed upon his completion of probation, the opinion noted.

The boy was one of two arrested in the Quartz Hill High incident, which drew widespread media coverage. Deputies said the boys had a crude, hand-drawn campus map marked with symbols for explosions, plus bomb-making instructions, but had no explosives.