Arizona parents charged after trying to get in locked-down school
Download mp3 (11.12 MB)Authorities on Monday released the charges against three parents who allegedly tried to force their way into an El Mirage elementary school last week.
Police had locked down Thompson Ranch Elementary School on Friday after an armed man was seen trying to get on campus.
The parents — two men and a woman — were arrested as they tried to get to their children to protect them, according to police.
Officers used a stun gun to stop two of the parents as they tried to help a man whose own handgun fell to the ground while he was being taken into custody.
Police said Monday that a 22-year-old man is being held on charges of misconduct involving weapons, possessing a deadly weapon on school grounds, obstructing governmental operations and disorderly conduct.
Another 22-year-old man remains jailed for disorderly conduct while charges are pending for a 48-year-old woman who was hospitalized with stun gun injuries from police officers who say they were trying to stop her from attacking them.
This incident follows the release of details of the police response to the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. An investigation has found “systemic failures and egregious poor decision making.”
To talk about how that may affect potentially similar situations going forward, The Show spoke to Brian Higgins, an adjunct lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. He’s also president of a public safety consulting firm and spent more than two decades in law enforcement, including as chief of the Bergen County Police Department in New Jersey.
