Irate man leads to brief shelter-in-place order at Sulphur Springs School

Washington County’s Sulphur Springs School was put briefly on shelter-in-place safety protocol Tuesday afternoon when a man became irate when demanding custody of one of the school’s students, Direct of Schools Ronald Dykes said.The man, who Dykes said claimed he was sent by the child’s mother to pick up a student to keep the child’s father from transporting him to Alabama, never entered the building, but became agitated while speaking with school faculty through the intercom system at the school’s front doors.”When he became irate and demanding, the school went into a shelter-in-place, we barred the individual from coming in and called law enforcement,” the director said.Dykes said there wasn’t a school resource officer present at the school at the time of the man’s arrival, but said one arrived in less than a minute once called by the school.The student’s biological father was speaking with staff at another district facility at the time of the incident, claiming to have an out-of-state court order giving him custody of the child, according to Dykes, which is what prompted the man to attempt to pick up the child from the school.”Evidently, the mother of the child sent the relative to the school to pick the child up because the family had heard a claim that the father was in town,” Dykes said.The man was not on the school’s approved list of individuals able to take custody of the child, so he was refused.Dykes said the father was also instructed that the court order from Alabama did not have legal jurisdiction in this state, and the parent was told he would have to work out the custody dispute in a Tennessee court.After law enforcement arrived, Dykes said the threat was neutralized, and the school was returned to a normal status.No one was injured during the incident, and the individual that triggered the safety protocol was not arrested, according to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.



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