BOWDOINHAM — A lockdown that prompted the cancellation of classes at an elementary school was lifted around noon Friday after three suspects in a nearby burglary were detained following an hourslong search.
The incident began when one of three young people dressed in black, including one in a ski mask, jumped in front of a vehicle on Route 1 and threatened to shoot the driver at 7:20 a.m. Friday, Sagadohoc County Sheriff Joel Merry said.
Deputy Steve Thibeault spotted the three suspects near 234 Post Road about 10 minutes later. Thibeault caught a 17-year-old boy, but the other two suspects ran into the woods. The sheriff’s office called out police dogs to track the suspects. At 8:10 a.m., Merry informed local schools.
The lockdown at Bowdoinham Community School was announced just before 8:30 a.m. Friday. About an hour and a half later, Superintendent Heidi O’Leary of Maine School Administrative District 75 sent a message to parents saying that the school would close for the rest of the day.
At a news conference Friday afternoon, Merry said officers along Post Road initially believed the suspects had fled into nearby woods, and police dogs followed a trail that led them toward the school, prompting the lockdown.
“Our intuition at that time told us that they — the other ones — were also in the woods, and that became the focus of the K-9 track. We had two dogs here, and they did appear to pick up a track. It took them into the area behind the school, so there was concern about that, and that’s why the school has been in lockdown.”
The two other suspects — one adult, one juvenile — hid in the basement of an unoccupied home on Post Road that they thought vacant, Merry said. At 11:39 a.m., police took the two into custody on Vine Street, several hundred feet from the school. Neither was armed.
Asked why officers did not find the suspects sooner, Merry replied, “It’s my understanding that the house was initially checked and that the individuals were seen coming from the house and headed across the field” and toward the woods.
Police charged Darius Dunn, 19, of Winthrop, with burglary, theft and criminal mischief. Dunn was taken to Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset and was being held on $1,500 bail pending arraignment.
Two male juveniles were also charged with burglary, theft and criminal mischief, but were taken to the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland, the state’s only youth prison.
Deputies were assisted at the scene by Topsham and Brunswick officers and Maine State Police. Officers could be seen deploying police dogs and drones as they searched around the Post Road home Friday morning.
O’Leary, the school superintendent, asked students waiting for the bus to go inside when she announced the lockdown shortly before 8:30 a.m. She said students who had already been picked up by their buses were rerouted to Mt. Ararat Middle School and the Orion Performing Arts Center.
“I believe this is the safest course of action for our students, staff and families,” she said in a message to families announcing the cancellation of classes.
In an updated message to families sent around noon, O’Leary said all MSAD 75 students and staff members were safe, and that the district would send information about mental health support in the wake of the situation, which she called “unsettling.”
Staff Writer Penelope Overton contributed to this report.
