All three schools in the South Williamsport School District were locked down Tuesday afternoon after a 32-year-old man - wanted in connection with a domestic shooting in Maryland - contacted a district employee by telephone while he was on the run, according to borough police.
The fugitive, Joshua Prince, 32, of Bethesda, Md., surrendered about 3 p.m. Tuesday without incident at the state police barracks in Montoursville, borough police Det. Sgt. James Taylor said.
Prince reportedly fled to Pennsylvania after firing a shot at his ex-girlfriend outside her Bethesda apartment complex shortly after 7 a.m., according to a news release issued by the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland.
Using a "high-powered rifle," Prince allegedly fired at least one shot at the woman inside a parking garage as she was leaving for work, the news release said.
The woman, who broke up with Prince just a week ago and had obtained a protection from abuse order against him, was not hurt, police said.
At about 11 a.m., Maryland authorities told Lycoming County police departments that Prince might be heading toward this region.
"We learned that he has ties to this area," Taylor said, but he did not elaborate.
At about the same time, a school district employee who is acquainted with Prince received a telephone call from the fugitive while on school property, Taylor said.
"The district alerted us to this immediately, and we soon received additional information from Maryland that the suspect was in fact in Pennsylvania," Taylor said.
Taylor, who declined to identify the school employee or the position they held with the district, said at no time did Prince "make any threats whatsoever, nor did he express any interest to come to the schools or to South Williamsport" during the conversation with the employee.
Taylor said he was aware of only one brief telephone conversation between Prince and the employee. He declined to disclose the specifics of the conversation.
As police and district officials shared information with one another, district Superintendent Thomas C. Farr ordered a lockdown about noon at the district's three schools.
"The police came to me and told me about a situation going on. I decided to lock the schools down," Farr said, referring all other questions to police.
"We are dismissing at regular times, with police at each school just in case. No one has spotted the person in our area, but for safety's sake, we locked down," he told a reporter before Prince's surrender.
Farr said he sent out "two contacts with all families."
The two electronic telephone messages told parents there was a person of concern in a sport utility vehicle in the area, and, as a result, the schools were locked down as is part of its procedure, one parent told the Sun-Gazette.
The message further instructed parents not to pick students up at the schools, which also is part of the district's procedure.
Those messages apparently did very little to ease the anxiety and fears that several parents felt during the afternoon drama.
During a three-hour period, the Sun-Gazette fielded a dozen telephone calls from anxious parents or grandparents concerned about the students' welfare.
One caller, a mother, was frantic and sobbing saying, "I have three children in the school, and I don't know what's going on. Nobody will tell me anything."
Another caller reported that her daughter, who has children in the district, had heard through the grapevine that there was "a crazy man in the building."
Another woman who called the paper said she was so frustrated by the lack of information coming from the district that she was going to drive to the school to see for herself what was going on.
Some of the callers expressed alarm about seeing a state police helicopter flying over the borough. However, the aircraft was not involved with what was happening at the district's schools, but was taking part in an educational outreach program at the Mountain View Christian School on Fleming Street in the borough.
Referring to Farr's decision to lock down the schools, Taylor said he believed officials "wanted to err on the side of caution" based on all the information authorities had received.
There was "a potentially violent suspect," possibly in the area, who had made one contact with a district employee, Taylor said.
"This was all done as a precautionary measure, and I believe the district felt that it was definitely better to be safe than sorry," Taylor said as he stood outside Central Elementary School.
Once in custody, Prince was arraigned before District Judge Jerry C. Lepley on a state police charge of fugitive from justice because he is wanted by Maryland authorities on a first-degree attempted homicide offense.
Prince automatically was committed to the Lycoming County Prison without bail. Anyone convicted in Maryland of attempted homicide will receive either a death sentence or a life prison sentence, making it an non-bailable offense, Lepley explained.
Jim Carpenter and Brandon Plocinski, Sun-Gazette staff, contributed to this story.
