Alameda: Police arrest school campus breach suspect
ALAMEDA — A 27-year-old man is in county jail after his arrest Wednesday on suspicion of several charges, just a day after allegedly walking onto Alameda High School’s campus and interacting with students in a classroom, authorities said.
According to a statement Wednesday, a teacher saw the man sitting in the classroom around 2:45 p.m. Tuesday and confronted him. When the man left the classroom, the teacher followed him outside and off the campus.
Police said a witness called police at 2:53 p.m. to report seeing two men arguing near the city’s main library, adding that dispatchers learned at 3:05 p.m. one man was a teacher following the other man after an on-campus incident. At 3:21 p.m. Tuesday, the teacher called police to say he had lost sight of the person in Oakland.
Shortly before noon Wednesday, a police detective saw the man walking in the 1100 block of Park Street, and detained him without incident. The man was arrested on suspicion of possession of drug paraphernalia, probation violation, and booked into Santa Rita jail. He faces arraignment Friday morning at Oakland’s Wiley Manuel courthouse, according to a county records check.
In a separate statement, Alameda Unified School District Superintendent Pasquale Scuderi thanked police for their investigation into Tuesday’s incident, laying out a rationale for school leadership’s actions around the man’s intrusion and a separate incident earlier Tuesday involving a former student.
Scuderi also alluded to a separate incident Monday at the district’s Encinal school campus, explaining that a water bottle tucked into a student’s clothes and intended for use in a gym water fight was mistaken for a possible firearm. No weapon was found during that incident, authorities said.
“In two of the three incidents that have occurred on campus this week, it was students who saw something suspicious and then proactively alerted adults on campus,” Scuderi said in part Wednesday.
“This is exactly what we teach our students to do, and we are both proud of and grateful for their quick thinking. Please talk with your students to make sure that if they see something they should say something, even if they’re not entirely sure of what they saw.”
Scuderi also said staff would continue to work with police and other officials to assess campuses, adding that “[i]t is quite possible that the open nature of some of our schools may need serious reconsideration. This could mean adjustments and inconveniences for the sake of increased safety and perimeter security.
“Those adjustments could include reduced points of campus access for students and staff, changes to some of our parking provisions, and other actions that may be perceived as inconvenient in the short term for staff and students.”
@AlamedaPD has announced they have arrested one of yesterday's AHS intruders. Superintendent Scuderi's message tonight includes that statement, as well as updates on the situation from the AHS and AUSD perspective. https://t.co/DqrdgBdAOU
— Alameda Unified (@AUSDNews) December 8, 2022
Arrest Made in Incident at Alameda High Schoolhttps://t.co/mrjiMPTNXe pic.twitter.com/pI89xyCq64
— AlamedaPD (@AlamedaPD) December 8, 2022
Contact George Kelly at 408-859-5180.