By LILY TINOCO | Reporter
Marquez Charter Elementary School was placed on lockdown due to a suspicious person hanging around the exterior of the perimeter fence on Monday, August 29, around 12:54 p.m., according to the Los Angeles School Police Department.
The school was on lockdown for approximately 26 minutes.
LASPD and the Los Angeles Police Department responded to the incident, and approached the male adult suspect, who was in the middle of the street. LAPD took the suspect into custody, and he was placed under private persons arrest without incident.
“A person is in custody for child annoyance,” Palisades Senior Lead Officer Brian Espin said to the Palisadian-Post. “The person did not make it onto school property. The person was standing outside the gate on the sidewalk trying to talk to some children in the yard. When confronted by school staff, the person remained in the area. Police arrived and conducted a preliminary investigation.”
The incident on August 29 was not reported as a trespass incident. LASPD reported that it has not received any reports of trespassing incidents at Marquez in the last 12 months.
“To ensure student safety, Marquez Elementary administrators and staff inspected the school environment and made sure it was secure,” Lieutenant Nina Buranasombati of the Office of the Chief of Police and Government Relations said to the Post. “They had staff members supervising the students and monitored the perimeter fence line when the children were on the yard, and their staff immediately reported suspicious activity to the police.”
The incident took place two weeks after the first day of the 2022-23 academic year on Monday, August 15.
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