Like the first moments of what unfolded in March in Uvalde, Texas, this sequence during a terror attack in Arizona on Friday led to heated exchanges between parents and relatives of students and authorities. But then the confrontation took a different turn. In the end, three people were arrested, two of whom were shocked with stun guns, after they tried to enter the grounds of Thompson Ranch Elementary School in the town of El Mirage, police said. The man who caused the lockdown was taken into custody and no children or teachers were injured. But in the wake of Uvalde, the conflict with parents represents a troubling view of the anger and mistrust that can make a school crisis even more chaotic. Arizona authorities said officers arrived at the scene shortly after someone there reported a man who appeared to have a gun and was trying to gain access to the school. The man then fled in an unknown direction. Officers attempted to ensure there was no longer a threat to the grounds, during which they discovered a suspicious package which police said was “ultimately examined by explosives technicians and made safe”. But as worried parents and relatives began to arrive, one person who was unable to enter the school got into an altercation with officers, police said. Two other people joined in, prompting officers to fire their stun guns and take all three into custody. One of them was injured and taken to a hospital, authorities said. The identity of the suspect in the lockdown was not released Sunday. He was being evaluated by mental health professionals and criminal charges were pending, police said. The names of the people arrested in the fight were not available Sunday. A video of the confrontation posted on social media shows parents and relatives shouting and pushing against the officers. At one point there is a bang and seconds later the video shows a gun on the ground near one of the parents. The barkers disperse as police fire stun guns and begin making arrests. A streak of blood can be seen on the pavement near a man as he is handcuffed, moaning in pain. In an account given to KPNX-TV in Arizona, Darlene Gonzales, whose daughter was inside the school, said that after parents were told the threat of a lockdown was over, she and her son tried to enter the school, but they were told to go to the library. At that point, she said, the situation escalated and she was thrown to the ground. She added that the gun seen in the video belonged to her son. El Mirage Police Chief Paul Marzocca said those involved in the fight broke the law and bear responsibility for what happened. “One cannot create this mess in a school in an emergency and walk away,” he said. Many responded to Chief Marzocca’s statement with expressions of support for the police response. “Parents need to control themselves when officers are trying to work,” Lori Jones, who said she lives about 30 minutes from El Mirage, said in a comment on the Police Department’s Facebook page. “Set an example for your children!!” However, some residents sympathized with the frustration parents may have felt. One commentator said the backlash was a “direct byproduct” of what had happened at Uvalde. Ron Avi Astor, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who studies school violence, said such clashes between parents and public officials were a symptom of deteriorating trust in law enforcement to handle situations like the one at El Mirage. “You can see that these parents don’t trust the police because of everything they’ve seen or heard,” he said. And if that perception doesn’t change, he said, it’s likely that more relatives and bystanders will continue to try to take matters into their own hands. But widespread media coverage of situations in which police response to a shooting is heavily criticized, such as in Uvalde, creates a narrative that isn’t necessarily representative of how police tend to handle those situations, he explained. Dr Astor, adding that the police need to help change that narrative. “They have to be honest, they have to be reliable and have the right approach around it,” he said of the police. “I think that’s how you build trust.”
