PHOENIX –
Police arrested three Arizona parents, shocking two of them with stun guns as they tried to force their way into a school that police locked down Friday after a gunman was seen trying to enter the campus, authorities said.
The parents were arrested as they tried to reach their children to protect them, authorities said. Police officers in the Phoenix suburb of El Mirage used a Taser to stop two of them as they tried to help a man whose own gun fell to the ground as they arrested him, authorities said.
The scene at Thompson Ranch Elementary School unfolded nearly three months after hundreds of law enforcement officers in the small Texas town of Uvalde failed to act for more than an hour when a gunman killed two teachers and 19 students.
No shots were fired at Thompson Ranch, the school was not breached and no one was injured except for one woman taken to the hospital with Taser injuries from officers who said they were trying to stop her from attacking them.
By the time the confrontations with the upset parents began, police had already confirmed there was no longer a threat, removed a suspicious package and planned to begin reuniting the parents with the children, El Mirage police Lt. Jimmy Chavez said.
But the school was still on lockdown, meaning no one would be allowed on campus, according to protocols police and the school district have established. Then distraught parents demanded to be allowed into the school so they could find their children and began confronting police, authorities said.
“Several parents continued their excitement, made several statements that they would come to campus to help protect their children,” Chavez said. “As a parent, I understand that philosophy. However, there are procedures that law enforcement and the school followed.”
Chavez said one man began to jostle to get past the officers, and while police were arresting him, a man and woman who were also confronting the officers came to his aid. Officers used a Taser to subdue them and they were also arrested. A gun fell to the ground as the first man was apprehended.
The armed parent will face a weapons charge — guns are not allowed on school grounds — and a disorderly conduct charge. The two parents who were Tasered will face unspecified charges. The woman was taken by ambulance to a hospital, Chavez said. No one was immediately identified.
The incident began around 10:30 a.m. Friday when school officials called police to report that a man, possibly armed with a gun, was trying to enter a locked school building. He was unable to get in and was kicked out by staff before El Mirage police and two other agencies arrived at the school, Chavez said.
Officers searching the school to make sure it was safe found a suspicious package and called in a bomb squad, Chavez said, and moved some children to another part of campus.
Then parents started arriving and confrontations with the police began, with parents “forcefully pushing the police trying to get to the college.”
“Parents need to understand that when the school is on lockdown and law enforcement is on site, no one will be allowed on campus,” Chavez said.
Chavez said school lockdown procedures between the school district and law enforcement are “working to the limit.”
Police later found the man who triggered the lockdown. He was being evaluated by mental health professionals late Friday and a police statement said charges are pending.
Efforts to reach El Mirage police Saturday for additional information were not immediately successful.
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