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Fairlands Elementary School was placed under a lockdown on Friday morning after a person who was not authorized to be at the school was found inside a storage room, according to authorities.
The suspect was arrested and nobody at the campus on West Las Positas Boulevard was harmed, according to police and school officials. It was later revealed that the man was allegedly in possession of — but did not brandish — a weapon, which has not been specified publicly.
“This was discovered in our investigation with PPD following the arrest. The individual did not have the weapon in hand when he was apprehended,” Pleasanton Unified School District director of communications Patrick Gannon told the Weekly on Sunday. “A follow-up communication was shared with the Fairlands community after we had gathered additional information.”
“This was a significant security incident that we will continue to look into with our partners at the PPD as well as districtwide to look at security measures and what we can learn to improve,” Gannon added. “We want to thank the Fairlands team for their response that ensured the safety of our school community.”
Pleasanton Police Department representatives did not respond to an inquiry over the weekend about the weapon possession.
Gannon told the Weekly on Friday the lockdown lasted from 10:45 a.m. until roughly 11:20 a.m.
PPD officers responded to the school at 10:55 a.m. where school staff found 32-year-old Rhodney Henderson, described as a “transient out of Berkeley”, sleeping in an upstairs storage area, according to PPD Sgt. Marty Billdt.
“Students were on lockdown, so they were inside a classroom … from the time the individual was discovered to until after the individual was taken into custody by police,” Gannon said.
Gannon added that no students or staff were harmed and that the entire lockdown occurred without any physical incident. He also said that the district will be working with the PPD to review camera footage to figure out how Henderson — who is now in police custody — got into the school.
Billdt said that, “since there were no signs of damage to the area where the male was found, it’s suspected he entered through an unlocked door.”
Billdt initially told the Weekly that Henderson was arrested on suspicion of burglary, trespassing and a probation violation and subsequently booked at Santa Rita Jail.
However, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office “Inmate Locator” webpage lists an additional felony charge against Henderson of possession of a weapon at a school. Details about the weaponry and related circumstances have not yet been confirmed.
Henderson remained in custody with bail set at $127,500 as of early Monday morning. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday morning (Oct. 10) at the East County Hall of Justice in Dublin.
Fairlands is not in session on Monday (Oct. 9) because it is a scheduled no-school day for all of PUSD. Monday coincides with the Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Columbus Day, but the off-day is not assigned to either holiday on the district’s instructional calendar.
So many questions. How did he get on campus? How long was he there? Did the video cameras catch anything? The staff is in the dark. I talked to a para and it was very upsetting. Dr Haglund did not go to Fairlands to check on his staff or students. How can our students feel safe when the school superintendent is not present during events such as this?
The principle delt with the issue, locked down the campus, called the police. It was resolved start to finish in forty-five minutes. Intruder was not a lost guarding angle.
Start to finish in 45 minutes? Transient out of Berkeley? This language is used to minimize this incident. Unacceptable. This was a big fn deal. All parties, PD and PUSD need to dig deep into this event so that the response improves. We got lucky.
1. How long did it take and how many officers responded? This is a calling all cars situation. It shouldn’t take shots being fired for a full response to an elementary school on lockdown. The event started at 10:47 and the all clear was announced by 11:20am? You can’t check and clear a school in that amount of time. How many officers responded? 4? How do you know there was only one individual involved? Why wasn’t an officer stationed there after 11:20 for the rest of the day? This was an armed individual in a school overnight. He had a cache of knives. Look at his rap sheet. 15 arrests this year alone. “Threats of violence”, “Exhibit deadly weapon other than a firearm”.
2. Why wasn’t the student body dismissed after the event so the school could be thoroughly searched and cleaned. The suspect was there overnight trolling around. It was a safety hazard.
It looks like staff and teachers at Fairlands performed exemplary. Do not minimize this event.
This is a huge deal and the language being used is attempting to minimize the issue. An armed man with a history of violence spent the night in a school, roamed the school gathering an arsenal of knives and hung out upstairs getting high. The suspect has been arrested ~8 times this year alone for “brandishing a weapon”, “threatening violence”, and “resisting arrest”. This is a career criminal. We were lucky that he was passed out and not at a different drug induced state.
1. Why didn’t the Fairlands alarm system with motion detectors go off? How long has the alarm system been not operational?
2. Was the police response adequate? Time to respond and number of officers responding. 1-2 officers responded initially. Was this enough? Why wasn’t a full search of the facility performed before it was given an all clear? Why wasn’t an officer stationed at the school after the event if there was someone else or to gather the evidence?
3. Why weren’t the kids released from school after weapons were found around the school and it was unknown what he had done roaming around all night?
The teachers and staff of Fairlands did an exemplary job locking down as they have been trained. It seems like the incident should be a learning opportunity in procedure for PUSD and the PD. They should also be more transparent with what happened.
He got in via an unlocked door the night before when custodial staff was still there. Cameras showed him entering a back door.
Police response was quick. There were 4 cars on-site. An officer did remain for the rest of the day.
Dr. Haglund was no where to be found. He didn’t respond to the community until Sunday. He didn’t come to Fairlands until Thursday. No leadership. The community should be aware.
Have we become so accustomed to bombastic news headlines that when an article simply reports the facts, it is criticized? The article provides the facts, leaving it up to the reader to draw their own conclusions based on those facts.