San Diego Unified Schools has mobilized counselors to support a grieving community after two teens were found dead in Tijuana.
The San Diego teenagers were killed execution-style in a triple homicide at a Tijuana apartment complex, according to reports.
The victims of the Sunday morning killings were Christopher Alexis Gomez, 17, a football player in his senior year at O'Farrell Charter High School, and Juan Suarez-Ojeda, 18, who graduated from Ingenuity Charter School on the shared Encanto campus earlier this year, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
The third victim was Angel Said Robles, a 17-year-old high school student in Tijuana, according to the Union-Tribune.
The trio had gone together to a barbecue in Ensenada last Friday and was supposed to return home that same night, Gomez's cousin, Katheryn Garcia, told the newspaper.
Authorities have not disclosed any indication of what might have led to the killings.
The semi-clothed bodies of the three victims were found early Sunday morning in a complex of apartments in Lomas Verdes, according to the Union-Tribune. The bodies were found outside one of the buildings, and initial police reports stated they had been shot in the head.
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Jorge Alvarez, head of the Baja California Attorney General's Office in Tijuana, told the Union-Tribune that preliminary information indicated the two San Diegans were familiar with the neighborhood where they were killed.
"They did not live there, but they came to visit family members, one of them apparently did so frequently," Alvarez told the newspaper.
Robles reportedly called his mother early Sunday and told her they were safe but had lost their cellphones, Garcia told the Union-Tribune.
Family members contacted Baja California authorities and frantically searched for the missing teenagers over the weekend, Garcia told the newspaper. On Sunday night, Tijuana police told the families about the three bodies found outside the Lomas Verdes apartment.
"When we have this type of incident, we work together with U.S. authorities," Alvarez told the Union-Tribune. "They help us and we help them."
Jonathan Dean, superintendent of the O'Farrell Charter School, said Suarez-Ojeda’s mom contacted school officials Monday, to tell them the young men had been killed in Tijuana on Sunday.
Dean said 17-year-old Gomez was a polite cheerful senior who helped lift the spirits while playing on the O'Farrell High School football team.
Suarez-Ojeda had recently graduated from O'Farrell's independent study program.
Teachers describe him as light-hearted.
Dean had known them both since middle school.
He said this tragedy has hit O'Farrell's entire school system hard.
"This one is difficult because of the cruelty used and the fact that we had the kids so long so you know them a little bit better, and I think this is much, much different in the way they were killed and the whole atmosphere around that situation," Dean said.
Between siblings and cousins, there are eight to 10 other current students in various grades who are related to the victims.
School officials at the school in Valencia Park launched a GoFundMe page for the families of the two teens.
Seniors at the high school are making plans for a permanent memorial.
