NORFOLK, Va. - Rusty Richardson arrived to pick up his grandchild from school and learned it happened again: a suspicious person showed up to his grandchild’s school, and tried to gain access.
“It truly is frightening to think that your kids could be potentially in danger,” Richardson told News 3.
For the second time in less than one week, Norfolk police are investigating a suspicious person incident at a local school. Richardson has grandchildren at both schools that were affected.
”We never had any of these incidents before that I know of,” Richardson said. “I know the schools have gone into lockdown. They’ve had some bomb scares in the past, but nothing like this.
Richardson has two grandchildren at Mary Calcott Elementary, where on Friday, an individual pretending to be a police officer tried to gain entry to the property.
The school was placed on a lockdown, and as of Monday morning, police were still searching for the man.
Then on Monday, there was another suspicious person incident at St. Pious X Catholic School, where Richardson has another grandchild.
Despite the alarming coincidence, neither incident caused Richardson to pull his grandchildren out from school.
“I have complete confidence in the police department,” said Richardson. “They were on scene, and we got pretty quick updates through various news sources that the situation was under control.”
According to police, the man walked into St. Pius around 7:45 am on Monday, before encountering a staff member.
Police say the man did not have a child with him, and he did or said something to make staff suspicious.
Randy Williams was working on the school’s property laying brick when the police arrived.
“At the time, I didn’t know what was going on, so I was little nervous,” said Williams. “The ladies who were in [the school] were trying to keep him talking until the authorities came.”
Police arrived quickly, and took the man in for questioning, but have not said whether he was the same man who entered Mary Calcott on Friday.
The back-to-back incidents have caused concern for many Norfolk parents, including Williams who has kids of his own.
“It made me question the security of the schools, and what can we do to make it better,” said Williams.
We reached out to the principal of St. Pius but did not hear back by our deadline. Parents of students at St. Pius told News 3’s Merris Badcock they received an email about the incident, and the majority of parents said they were satisfied with the way the school handled the incident.
The suspect is still in police custody but has not been charged.
