Man arrested after ‘menacing students’ with knife inside Seattle preschool

According to the Seattle Police Department, at 11:09 Tuesday officers responded to an in-progress call of suspect menacing students with a knife inside the Phinney Community Center which is the location of the Phinney Neighborhood Preschool Co-op.

The school was put in lockdown and responding officers formed a contact team and entered the school.

They located Jason T. Smith hiding behind a moveable wall on the building’s 3rd floor. According to charging documents obtained by The Post Millennial, a teacher saw Smith wearing a grey shirt and black sweatpants "pacing back and forth, yelling in anger unintelligibly, pointing at walls and talking about someone shooting a gun at a wall." Police confirmed that no one had fired a gun.

According to a student, the suspect pulled a knife out of his pocket and was opening and closing it. A teacher said Smith was "unpredictable" and "out of his gourd."

Officers held a position at a distance of about 75 feet away from the suspect and placed barriers for shielding. Additional officers were directed to a landing on a staircase below the suspect to limit his access to the remainder of the building.

One officer spoke to the suspect and determined that the suspect was "in crisis" and making paranoid and hallucinatory statements. The officer negotiated with the suspect and de-escalated the situation, even though Smith was not compliant and was able to take the suspect into custody.

Officer then swept the area and confirmed the suspect was alone even though Smith claimed there was someone with a gun and that others were hiding in a garbage can outside planning to attack him.

Police seized two weapons from the suspect, a large folding knife and a broomstick, which Smith had obtained by entering a broom closet and unscrewing a broom handle from a mop of another item. According to SPD, following the incident, officers "worked with staff to calm the students and explain what happened" after the lockdown was over.

The suspect was booked for Unlawful Use of Weapons to Intimidate.

A referral was also made to the Municipal Mental Health Court due to the suspect having "potential stimulant influence" and "a long-standing history of substance use and mental health concerns." The program describes itself as "voluntary" which "has saved thousands of jail days, thousands of hospital bed days, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in jail costs to the City of Seattle."

Participants are usually sentenced to probation rather than jail time.

Another preschool, Montessori Garden, and the Phinney School of Music are both nearby.