A deranged man suspected of being high on meth has been arrested for committing multiple assaults after jumping the fence of a Seattle-area elementary school and terrorizing a class of fifth-grade students.
The troubling incident took place last week at Sand Point Elementary School, where, according to Seattle Police (SPD), 20-year-old Liban Harasam – who is known to SPD as a “high utilizer,” aka. a prolific criminal – jumped the fence and entered a fifth-grade classroom just before 2:30 pm last Thursday. Parents who witnessed Harasam’s unhinged episode claimed that he had been “harassing students and staff” while stealing items from students’ backpacks and touching “many of them on their heads and backs.”
Oh, and he was wielding a tennis racket as extra nightmare fuel for the terrorized fifth graders.
According to one parent, who spoke to Seattle’s KOMO News, Harasam even grabbed two students as if to take them with him. Needless to say, the children were traumatized, especially in the wake of the tragedy in Uvalde.
“They were rattled… just, I really felt bad for them, you know? Just what comes to mind is Texas, you know? It’s just like what’s going on?
He grabbed two children – he grabbed one and thought that’s the one he wanted to take, but then another girl tried to defend her friend and he deflected her and grabbed her too.”
Despite recent tragic events and the initiation of a full school lockdown, Harasam was permitted to leave the premises when police arrived because school staff, including the Principal – Richard Baileykaze – refused to cooperate with officers, which effectively allowed him to walk away and attempt to hijack a delivery van just moments later.
Unbelievably, the lack of cooperation by school staff prevented officers from making an arrest due to a lack of probable cause. Thanks to Seattle’s ‘progressive’ policing policies, officers are largely handcuffed in situations where they can not establish a victim. Even though school officials witnessed the deranged man stealing from and creepily touching students, they refused to talk until the man had left the premises.
According to the SPD incident report, officers were called to the school after it was placed in lockdown, and, when they arrived, they were greeted by an uncooperative Baileykaze and two other teachers as Harasam continued wreaking havoc inside the school. One officer who arrived was not even told by staff that the school was in lockdown. Only after finding Baileykaze in the parking lot was the officer made aware of the situation.
By the time the officers had eyes on Harasam, he was ‘walking in circles’ away from any students, but, because they did not have any information, they were forced to perform a simple ‘welfare check’ – which was refused – and Harasam was able to walk away.
From the officer’s report, via MyNorthWest’s Jason Rantz:
“’I met Principal R. [Baileykaze], in the north parking lot. He was observing the suspect with two other teachers. He provided very little information about the incident. I was only advised that the suspect jumped the fence,’ the officer wrote in his incident report.
The officer observed Harasam ‘walking around in circles’ while repeatedly dropping personal items, according to the report. He may have been high or experiencing a mental health crisis.
‘Principal R. [Baileykaze] and the other two teachers would not speak to me. I had not been advised of any crime, so I contacted the suspect thinking I was performing a welfare check, due to his mental state. He appeared to be under the influence of narcotics or possibly having a mental episode,’ the officer wrote.
Harasam would not speak to the officer and walked off.”
Only at this point did the school staff speak up about what they witnessed Harasam doing, including stealing a child’s backpack and other items; however, it was too late. Before police could even take the information down about the victim, Harasam was already committing a violent assault and attempting to hijack a delivery truck.
In other words, the Baileykaze’s intentional lack of cooperation led to the destruction of probable cause and enabled Harasam to commit a string of preventable assaults.
More from the officer’s report, via Jason Rantz:
“Once HARASAM, LIBAN left the school grounds, Principal R. [Baileykaze] now stated the suspect took a child’s backpack,” the report alleges.
“Principal R. [Baileykaze] now claimed HARASAM, LIBAN had the backpack. Principal R. [Baileykaze] turned away from me and walked off. He refused to advise me if anything had been taken from the backpack. He continued to walk away. I advised radio of the principal’s uncooperative behavior, which destroyed probable cause that a
crime occurred. I was unable to validate his earlier claims of a crime,” the report says.Again, the principal would not help, allowing the suspect to walk, according to police.
“I no longer had probable cause that crime occurred, since there was no victim identified for the theft, and Principal R. [Baileykaze] walked off refusing to cooperate,” the officer writes in the report.
Immediately after leaving the school, Harasam continued his unhinged spree by attacking a delivery truck driver, splitting his lip open with one of the school children’s binders he stole. After being successfully deterred by the driver, Harasam fled the scene and boarded a city bus where he was confronted by officers, whom he violently assaulted before they finally took him into custody.
According to the SPD, it took four officers to subdue Harasam and one female officer who was assaulted by him suffered a fractured arm or wrist in the scuffle.
From a second officer’s incident report, via Jason Rantz:
“[The driver] began yelling at the male to get out, believing the suspect was about to steal the vehicle. [The driver] got to the door of the vehicle and was stuck in the face with what he believed was a blue binder. He attempted to move out of the way of the strike, but was hit in the mouth causing a split bleeding lip. The [driver] pulled the male out of the vehicle, but the suspect grabbed at the mounted cell phone that the victim had by the steering wheel. The victim believed that the suspect was attempting to steal his phone before exiting the vehicle,” the report states.
[After Harasam fled the scene of the hijacking] “[As officers were] trying to get [Harasam] into handcuffs, [Harasam] purposely used his body and slammed [an officer’s] wrist into the window of the bus causing substantial pain and possible injury,” a third incident report states.
“[During the arrest] LIBAN was struggling the entire time and was shouting ‘you don’t have probably [sic] cause.’”
The unbelievable (in)actions by the school staff should be a fireable offense, at the very least. Not only was Harasam assaulting the kids by touching them on the head and back without their consent, but he was also stealing from them – not to mention the fact that the incident took place on a public elementary school campus.
Thankfully, the SPD was able to charge Harasam on multiple counts, including first-degree criminal trespass, two counts of assault, vehicle prowling, and resisting arrest. Now, all we need is for the radical soft-on-crime Seattle DA to do his damn job for once, but, unfortunately, that is a bigger ask than it should be in the leftist bastion of the Evergreen State.
The post Seattle School Principal Refused to Cooperate With Police as Deranged Intruder Was Terrorizing a Class of Fifth Grade Students, Allowing Him to Exit School Lockdown And Immediately Commit Multiple Assaults Before His Arrest appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
