Sand Point Elementary Incident

Update 3: 

Just to be clear, there were four separate incidents that day with that suspect. The first at View Ridge Swim and Tennis Club, then Sand Point Elementary School, then blocks away when the suspect tried to steal a DHL delivery truck and then later, on a city bus, as officers tried to arrest the suspect and he fought with them, either breaking or straining an officer's wrist. The report says it took four officers to hold him down. 

Here's a link to the police report on all that happened with the suspect that day.  The police report is near the bottom of the listings. I note that another document in the list is for a mental health evaluation.

The officer on the scene at Sand Point Elementary says this:

This report is intended as a summary of the events that occurred under case #22-139699. I have
paraphrased conversations and do not include an exact summary of events. For exact quotes or exact
sequencing of events, I would refer the reader to my body worn video & ICV, as it was recording at
the time of this incident.

I have requested the video.

He says the Sand Point ES secretary called 911 at 2:26 pm. I think he thought the caller was the secretary but I believe it to be a parent. He was advised that the principal was trying to get the intruder to leave and that no weapons had been seen.

He says he called "the complainant" said the school was in lockdown information which had not been previously stated to him. 

He says he was advised by the principal that the intruder had jumped the fence (even though much had happened after that but maybe the principal wasn't clear on what happened at that point in time). 

He said he saw the suspect wandering in circles, dropping personal property as he walked. 

He said neither the principal nor two teachers would speak to him.

The officer states he had not been advised of any crime so he had thought this was a welfare check. He says another officer arrived and tried to determine if there had been a crime committed. (He gives no time so it's not clear when this other officer got there.)

The suspect leaves the school grounds, ignoring the officer. Once he left, the principal then told the officer that the suspect had taken a child's backpack. But when he tried to ask about what was in the backpack or whose it was, the principal walked away. 

"I no longer had probable cause that crime occurred, since there was no victim identified for the theft, and Principal R. B. walked off refusing to cooperate." 

The suspect has been charged with criminal trespass, vehicle prowling, two assaults (of officers) and one resisting. It is unclear to me if any of those are related to the Sand Point incident.

Update 2:

There have been several media reports on this incident but not from the Seattle Times nor KUOW. Hmmm.

KOMO says the suspect is 20 years old. Apparently, the same man got into the View Ridge Swim and Tennis club, scaling a 10-12 foot fence, just before the Sand Point Elementary incident. The club was hosting a middle school party. The suspect was escorted out before anything happened.  It was reported to police. 

KIRO says that no one at the school called 911, just the one parent (which might explain why the cop who came, he called that parent to get info on the incident and not the school itself).  I have asked SPD for the 911 calls.

A spokesperson for the district wrote in an email:

“We have been in communication with Chief Diaz and the command staff at the north precinct. We have scheduled a debrief with SPD about this event and to determine how we can improve communications and coordination when SPD responds to calls at our school.”

I have an email into SPS about when this meeting might happen.

Casey McNerthney, spokesperson for the King County Prosecutor’s Office, says due to the lack of evidence, there will be no felony charges. Instead, the case was directed by Seattle Police to the Seattle City Attorney’s Office.

“Really, what it comes down to is what evidence we have from investigators,” said McNerthney. “From our conversations with SPD, there’s a question about what they were able to get after those initial conversations.”

The City Attorney’s Office has charged Harsam with five violations: criminal trespass, vehicle prowling, two counts of assault and resisting arrest.

It is also being reported that the district is checking all the locks at the school. Apparently, the lock on portable the intruder got into was not working and the kids could not lock the door.

end of Update 2

Update 1:

There's quite a lengthy article at Next Door in Seattle about this incident. A guy relates it as his wife was on the scene and saw parts of it. Her account is horrifying and frightening. So many kids were scared by this man that to think he was not arrested for trespassing is hard to fathom.

I do want to offer an apology for thinking that what the police said happened is the entire story. Clearly it is not. Below is the parent's account of what happened (keeping in mind some of it is from others on the scene and not directly witnessed). 

Kudos to the teacher who came to the rescue of one class and talked the intruder out of the portable (which could not be locked from the inside).  

I can understand if the principal wanted to make sure he had done all he could but when the police came on the scene, I can't imagine why the principal didn't tell the police to arrest the intruder. However, once the officer heard that the guy chased kids, got into a classroom, touched kids, etc., it's equally hard to fathom why he didn't arrest the guy (if only for trespassing). 

I do think the district should issue a statement and if they do, I'll put it up here. 

The Next Door accounting:

I would like to share about the incident that happened at Sand Point Elementary on Thursday, June 2nd, beginning at 2:15pm. I have read accounts in the press that do not present the accuracy and the gravity of the situation, and I’d like to present the events from the perspective of a family at the school. 

I am the Dad of 3 children at SPE (5th, 4th, and 1st grader). My wife is an active volunteer with the Sand Point PTA. All 4 of them were on site and witnessed various portions of the event that transpired. 

At ~2:15pm, prior to school dismissal, there was a 5th grade and 1st grade class outside on the playground. My wife was onsite passing out cupcakes on the playground for our 1st grade son’s birthday. At this time, multiple people witnessed a mid-20’s male climb and jump the fence onto school grounds. He was also in possession of a bag that he had thrown over the fence and picked up once on school grounds. (Will refer to him as ‘intruder’ at this point forward). 

A teacher saw the intruder and yelled at him to STOP, and that he was not allowed to be on school grounds. The intruder disregarded her and started running after students on the playground. (Multiple students have since said that the intruder was chasing them.) 

As this was happening, the teacher yelled for someone to call 911, and for the students to immediately go back into their classroom and call the office. She went to alert and help others to safety. A 5th grade boy alerted the younger students that, “A man just climbed the fence onto school grounds and they needed to go in the building.”

 As my wife dialed 911 and began to report the emergency (the time was 2:19pm), the 1st grade teacher gathered younger children to go back into the school building. They would then proceed back into the main building classrooms, whereby they closed windows, locked doors, and told other classrooms and kids they were in lockdown. 

The 5th grade students began to run toward the portable buildings, where the 4th and 5th grade classrooms reside. Several students were screaming, and the intruder continued to chase students toward the portables. 

Once the 5th graders were in the portable, they closed the door and my 5th grade son called the office and told them, “There’s a man that jumped the fence and is chasing students. He’s coming into our classroom. Send the principal.” The portable door was unable to lock from the inside due to a faulty lock, so several of the students held the door shut as the intruder attempted to enter the classroom. The students resisted, but he was finally able to force the door open and enter the classroom. Students were screaming, crying, and several were responding in panic. My 5th grade son said that it sounded like the intruder was yelling in English as well as another language. The intruder singled out a female student, said that she looked like his sister, grabbed her shirt in his hand, and asked her what her name was. She yelled back at him, “I’m not going to tell you.” 

As this was transpiring, the 4th grade teacher who had been next door had heard all the commotion, initially thinking that the screaming outside was the kids playing a game, but quickly realized something was wrong. Her own students were beginning to be scared. (My own daughter later said she was shaking, having a panic attack, and attempting to comfort her friends who were crying, scared, and hysterical.) 

The 4th grade teacher entered the 5th grade portable and stepped between the intruder and the students. She began to talk him down and told him to leave. She was able to talk him out of the classroom as the principal arrived and intervened between her and the intruder, talking him away from the students and teacher. The 4th grade teacher gathered all of the 4th/5th grade students into her class and remained in lockdown while the principal urged the intruder away from the school. The principal did not lay hands on him, as he noticed inside the intruder’s bag was free of weapons, and felt he was either mentally unstable or on drugs and did not want to make the situation escalate by making him feel threatened. The intruder was verbally telling the principal to leave him alone and get away, to which the principal responded that he would not leave him alone until the man left school property. The intruder proceeded to walk around outside on school grounds for a period of time (the amount of time was believed to be ~10 min). During this time, he took a students’ backpack, and emptied the contents of his bag into the students backpack. 

By this time, several other School authorities had been alerted and started to show up at the scene. A school district supervisor/employee who lives nearby came on site and stepped in to support the principal. 

An SPD Officer had responded to the scene by this time but remained in their vehicle. The officer must have received my wife’s number from emergency authorities, because he called her from his vehicle (the time stamp was now 2:32pm on her phone) in an attempt to understand what was going on. He asked my wife if she was a staff member, to which she replied ‘no’ and told the officer the school was in lockdown. 

The officer’s response told her that he was unaware that the school was in lockdown. The principal approached the officer’s vehicle at this time, identified himself, and told the officer that the intruder was still on school grounds, needing to be removed from the property. The officer remained in his vehicle and asked the principal to spell his name for him. The principal left the officer at this point to walk back to the intruder and was finally able to usher him off the school property, at which point the officer stepped in and began to talk the man away from the school. The officer was concerned that the man was in possession of stolen property from the school, and verbally stated that he did not want to escalate the situation further by laying his hands on him. 

As all this transpired outside, the kids in the school remained in locked until ~2:50pm. Many parents had gathered outside the school building by this time, as it was 20min past normal school dismissal. Many of the classrooms did not know the reason for the lockdown, but those who had witnessed and been part of the events were shaken, crying, and scared. Many of the students had been discussing the recent school shooting in Texas in their classes since last week, and several of them were worried that this kind of event was going to happen to them while they remained in lockdown. 

The kids were finally alerted over the intercom that it was safe to leave, and they were all walked out the front of the building and released from school to parents and buses.

 I am unable to comment with full accuracy on what transpired after the man left the school grounds. I have been informed that the man may have later taken into custody after an attempted robbery of a DHL truck, and an assault on a Metro bus driver (please correct me if this is inaccurate). 

Personally, this has been overwhelming. From what we know and witnessed, I'm most frustrated with the lack of immediate and strong intervention by SPD. I’m also concerned for the safety gaps that this exposed with the facilities of our schools. I’ve been told by school authorities that the building and policies are being evaluated and updated, most notable the locks and door mechanisms of the portable classrooms. 

I am fully convinced that the school staff, teachers, and authorities acted in the best interest of the safety of my children and the school community with the information they had. I’m proud of the SPE children, their bravery, and all of the School staff for how they acted in the best interest of our children and community.

end of update 

Here's the latest head-scratcher from My Northwest.

A man suspected of being high on meth allegedly jumped over the fence at a Seattle elementary school, entered a portable classroom, and attempted to steal students’ backpacks. It prompted a school lockdown. But when police arrived, the school principal would not cooperate. It likely played a role in the suspect then attempting to hijack a delivery van moments later. 

The suspect is 20-year-old Liban Harasam and, according to police, is a High Utilizer — the designation for prolific offenders that the Seattle City Attorney will now prioritize after arrest.

This was at Sandpoint Elementary School. I know that Director Chandra Hampson had children there, maybe still one.

What did the suspect do?

Police say Harasam arrived at Sand Point Elementary school just before 2:30pm last Thursday. Police documents allege he hopped the fence to the campus where, according to a parent, he was allegedly “harassing students and staff.” The parent said he “proceeded to rifle through [student] backpacks and touch many of them on their heads and backs” while wielding a tennis racket.

And the principal?

Police were called after the school went into lockdown. But Principal Richard Baileykaze, according to the incident report, would not cooperate with police, effectively preventing an arrest.

“Principal R. [Baileykaze] and the other two teachers would not speak to me. I had not been advised of any crime, so I contacted the suspect thinking I was performing a welfare check, due to his mental state. He appeared to be under the influence of narcotics or possibly having a mental episode,” the officer wrote.

Harasam would not speak to the officer and walked off.

So the police responded and the principal knew the suspect had been in the building, interacting with kids. So what next?

“Once the suspect left the school grounds, Principal R. [Baileykaze] now stated the suspect took a child’s backpack,” the report alleges. 

The officer now had probable cause for misdemeanor theft — he just needed the info of the student so he would have a victim. 

“Principal R. [Baileykaze] now claimed the suspect had the backpack. Principal R. [Baileykaze] turned away from me and walked off. He refused to advise me if anything had been taken from the backpack. He continued to walk away. I advised radio of the principal’s uncooperative behavior, which destroyed probable cause that a
crime occurred. I was unable to validate his earlier claims of a crime,” the report says.

Again, the principal would not help, allowing the suspect to walk, according to police. 

 

“I no longer had probable cause that crime occurred, since there was no victim identified for the theft, and Principal R. [Baileykaze] walked off refusing to cooperate,” the officer writes in the report.

And the likely outcome because of the lack of cooperation from the principal:

Without the ability to arrest, Harasam ran away. Not long after, he was accused of assault and attempting to steal a DHL delivery van.

And SPS?

Neither Baileykaze nor SPS spokespeople responded to multiple requests for comment made over the weekend.

WTF? Is the suspect a relative of someone in the building? What? If I were a Sandpoint parent, I would want answers. Stat.