School Officer Wounds Intruder

A school district police officer shot and wounded an intruder at Fremont Elementary School Sunday who he believed was armed but was actually carrying binoculars, police said Monday.

The unidentified intruder was in stable condition at UC San Diego Medical Center, where he was taken by ambulance after the shooting, San Diego Police Lt. Paul Ybarrondo said.

The man was shot in the abdomen and hip after being discovered inside the school building by the San Diego Unified School District police officer, whose name was not released. The officer was placed on administrative leave pending the investigation, Ybarrondo said.

The officer responded to a silent alarm at 10:36 p.m. that indicated there was an intruder in the kitchen area of the school at 2375 Congress St. in Old Town, Ybarrondo said.

The officer unlocked a school door and could not find the kitchen, so he came out the west side of the building and saw a bench under a broken window of the auditorium-cafeteria building. The window had previously been broken and a piece of plywood had been placed over it, but the piece of wood was off the window, he said.

The officer unlocked the cafeteria, went inside and, in his flashlight beam, saw a man who ran to the broken window and tried to climb out. The officer, who had drawn his gun, ordered the man to stop. But the man turned toward the officer and had a dark object in his right hand that the officer thought was a gun, Ybarrondo said.

The officer fired three rounds, he said. Upon closer examination, he discovered that the object was not a gun but a pair of binoculars, apparently taken from the school, Ybarrondo said.

Ybarrondo said he didn’t know whether the officer had identified himself as a police officer when he ordered the man to stop.