"The sight of a shirtless, rifle-toting man abruptly ended two ball games and sent people fleeing for cover Friday at Staunton River High School, but authorities say he had no intention of hurting anyone or causing such a ruckus.
The man was walking with a beagle along Flint Hill Road in Bedford County, carrying a bag of dog food and an unloaded .22-caliber rifle, when he stopped and sat in a ditch near school property, authorities said Monday.
"The person of interest left a residence and was proceeding to walk to another residence, and Staunton River High School just happened to be between those two points," said Bedford County Sheriff Mike Brown.
Authorities declined to offer any explanation for the man's appearance or behavior, which prompted a school lockdown and the evacuation of more than 100 people in school buses.
County authorities also withheld the man's name because he had not been charged with a crime. Investigators were attempting to determine, however, whether he illegally had stepped onto school property with the gun.
"We have no reason to believe that the individual of interest had any malice at all in this, and no intention of doing harm at all," Brown said.
High school baseball and softball games were in session and track practice had just let out when authorities received the first 911 call about 5:40 p.m. The first sheriff's deputies arrived within 15 minutes and searched the area.
A baseball announcer told the crowd that there had been a report of someone with a gun either on or near campus, school officials said. People hurried for cover in locker rooms and dugouts and at nearby Staunton River Middle School.
Scores of people were bused to the Apple Market convenience store just up the road from the two schools, with a sheriff's deputy driving one of the buses.
School officials stopped short of calling the situation a panic but said there was a heightened sense of urgency in light of last month's shootings at Virginia Tech.
"It was a very hairy situation, a very tense situation," the sheriff said.
Later that evening sheriff's deputies found and questioned the man who unwittingly had caused the commotion.
Michael Kelly, principal of the high school, said the school's emergency plan worked well. Even so, school officials met Monday morning to discuss lessons learned by the incident.
Among the proposed changes were to improve the availability of keys to the middle school after hours and to have a uniform emergency announcement that would be read over an intercom if ever another situation warrants it."
Sent people fleeing. From the sight of a man with a .22. Walking a beagle. I see. Must have missed the Mad-Dog-Snoopy-Walker memo. Wonder what deserted islands are going for these days.
Thanks To The War on Guns.
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