Sand Point parent shares thoughts on man trying to get into elementary school

SEATTLE - KOMO New continues to look into what happened last Thursday afternoon at Sand Point Elementary:

A 20-year-old man, who saw a judge on Monday is accused of several incidents including going into a classroom with children inside, assaulting a delivery driver and assaulting a police officer.

On Tuesday, KOMO’s Paul Rivera spoke to a parent of children who attend the school.

RELATED: Man arrested after trying to get into Seattle elementary school, assaulting truck driver

Bryon Scharenberg said he has three children who attend the school and they were all there, including his wife who is a PTA volunteer.

“My wife was, she called 911 when it happened. My kids, they witnessed it as well,” Scharenberg said, “My oldest was in a classroom that the man went to and my middle child was in a classroom next door.”

“It’s scary,” Scharenberg said. “We can all agree that something like this is not what we would desire to happen in our communities and in our schools,” he added, “It’s fair to say that it’s concerning and we need to show up and figure out how we can correct it.”

One point of contention in this case, is early police reports state there was a lack of cooperation between Sand Point Elementary School Administration and Seattle Police. Officials told KOMO News on Monday the administration not cooperating in the on-scene investigation early on, was a factor that caused the suspect’s charges to be misdemeanors instead of felonies.

Scharenberg gave his opinion on that communication.

“I’ve heard an account from the people that were there that day. From my understanding, attempts were made to communicate fully. I wasn’t there as a witness. I can’t speak to the details of it. I think in some way, or capacity it presents a gap in communication and the importance of something that we need to address to be able to communicate rightly,” he said. “In my opinion and from eyewitness accounts, what I’ve heard, I believe that the Sand Point community did everything that they should have done to be able to properly inform authorities and get the help that they needed.”

Since, KOMO News has repeatedly asked but has not been able to get specific answers from either Seattle Public Schools, or Seattle Police on what exactly happened at the moment and whether communication did, or did not fully happen.

We have been told SPS and SPD will have an upcoming scheduled meeting to discuss what happened and how communication can be improved between the two groups. We asked the school district on Tuesday when the meeting would be held, but we have not heard back.

This Tuesday, Paul Rivera also spoke to Bruce Gillespie, the facility manager at ‘View Ridge Swim and Tennis Club.’ He showed Rivera surveillance video of a man who was on pool property last Thursday while a middle school party was happening and the lifeguard response that followed.

Gillespie said the man forced his way onto the property and the incident happened just before the events at Sand Point Elementary, which is about a mile away from the swim and tennis club.

“Individual climbed over our 10-12 foot gate that we had shut for security. Jumped down, appeared to have kind of sprained his ankle and he started to making his way into the facility and then into the locker room. At that time, the lifeguards kind of jumped into action and one went to tell the parents. One called 911, one went out to reopen the gate so we had a place to have the individual exit and then one went to the locker room and cleared that and then they exited the individual out,” Gillespie said.

Gillespie told us the person left the area. Gillespie said he also called 911, later spotting the person and followed behind at a distance while speaking with 911. Eventually, Gillespie lost sight of the person.

“We kind of figured that was going to be it, we hadn’t had any police response at the time,” he added.

Forty-five minutes later, Gillespie said he saw police drive by.

“I just heard a whole bunch of cop cars going by at a high rate of speed,” Gillespie then heard they were by the school. “Just out of curiosity, I drove up there to kind of see what was going on as I drove past slowly, I looked over, saw an individual that was on a gurney. I don't know if he was strapped to it, but he was certainly being held down and absolutely, same guy sat up. Had the black shirt on."

The description of the person Gillespie is describing is similar to the suspect that was described in a Seattle Police incident report about the Sand Point Elementary case. There is also a resemblance in the person that KOMO News saw in municipal court on Monday.

Seattle Police would not confirm if these incidents are connected, a spokesperson stating:

“Upon further reflection, we don’t have any additional info to provide at this time. I’d recommend you reach out to the court about this.” They went on to say in a separate statement, “our unit is also unable—by policy—to confirm the identification of a suspect if they are not booked into jail for that crime. So, if no one was booked for this incident at the pool you’ve referenced, we would not be able to confirm any correlation or involvement to another incident.”

KOMO News reached out to court officials, but they stated that they only had information on filed cases.