Off-duty cop with a gun arrested during school lockdown

Parents wait outside Mesa View Elementary School to pick up students following a lockdown on Tuesday. Menifee 24/7 photos: Doug Spoon

An off-duty Riverside police officer was taken into custody Tuesday at a school that was under lockdown for an unrelated incident, authorities said.

The Sheriff's Department reported that Mark Delarosa, 35, of the Romoland community in Menifee was taken into custody by Sheriff's deputies during a lockdown at Mesa View Elementary School, located in the 27200 block of Heritage Lake Drive. No one was injured and students were released from school at the normal time. According to an official with the Romoland School District, the lockdown had been initiated before Delarosa's arrival because of another matter.

Trevor Painton, assistant superintendent, said Mesa View and three other schools in the district were placed on lockdown shortly after noon as a precaution because of the report of a possible burglary in the area. He said the man apprehended at Mesa View was an off-duty police officer who heard about the lockdown and arrived at the school with a gun.

Sheriff's Deputy Mike Vasquez confirmed that Delarosa is an officer with the Riverside Police Department. According to other sources, Delarosa arrived at the school because he heard about the lockdown and has a child who is a student there.

Several people in the neighborhood reported hearing commands shouted from a police helicopter to a man whom they say didn't immediately comply. One witness shot video of the man being led away to a police car while the school remained on lockdown.

Parents learning of the police activity on social media began gathering at the school to pick up their children. Office doors were locked while school officials completed lockdown protocol and police finished a security sweep before students were released to parents.

A news release issued to the media by the Sheriff's Department Tuesday night stated that officers responding to the campus searched the exterior school grounds and detained a male suspect who matched the description of the man with a gun. Delarosa was identified as the suspect and was arrested for being in possession of a weapon on school grounds.

One parent on scene at the time of the man's arrival told Menifee 24/7 she knows where police got the description of the man.

Autumn Shumway said she arrived early to pick up a sick child. Before she could park her vehicle, she said a man came "sprinting toward" her and asked to borrow her phone.

"He was running from the front of the office and he had a gun in his hand," Shumway said. "He shouted to me to stop the car and roll down my window. I recognized him as being a parent of a student at the school, so I determined him not to be a threat to me. He used my phone to call 911 and gave them a complete description of himself and that he had a gun. He identified himself as an off-duty police officer and that he was going to proceed onto campus."

Shumway stayed on the phone with 911 and watched from a distance. She lost sight of the man for a minute but assumed he hopped the fence into the back grounds of the school. That's when commands from a police helicopter began.

"I assume he got there early as well, saw the front doors locked or knew about the lockdown from listening to a scanner or something," she said. "I don't think the precautionary lockdown was that big a deal. My kids have been on precautionary lockdowns when a bank was robbed five miles away. If he wouldn't have brought out a gun, it wouldn't have made the lockdown turn crazy. That escalated it a hundred fold.

"I heard them shout at him two, maybe three times. That's the weird thing in question. If he's a cop, why didn't he surrender right away? The only thing I can think is that he went into cop mode when he knew about a lockdown and wanted to get in there quick."

Vasquez said it is protocol for officers to shout repeated commands to anyone who is within reach of a weapon, which may account for what witnesses heard from the helicopter.

According to Vasquez, the first school placed on precautionary lockdown was Romoland Elementary School, which is the nearest school to the scene of a reported burglary in the 25700 block of Antelope Road. Because of that lockdown, he said, district protocol dictated that the other schools go on lockdown.

Three suspects of an unknown race, possibly females, are being sought for the burglary on Antelope Road, Vasquez said.

Parents told Menifee 24/7 their children were either huddled in a corner during the lockdown or hiding under desks, as instructed by teachers. Some parents complained that the school did not send an immediate text about the lockdown. Parents waiting in line were notified personally by an administrator about 1:45 p.m. and others were handed a letter with limited details shortly before dismissal at 2:20 p.m. Later, parents said they received a phone message about 4:30 p.m.

Here is a video of De La Rosa as he was led off campus, taken by a parent who asked not to be identified:





Here is a compilation of Menifee 24/7's Facebook Live reports as they happened, with the camera rotation on the second clip fixed: