Clark County sheriff’s deputies detained a transient man who they say followed a student into Columbia River High School and entered her classroom while smoking a cigarette before being chased out of the building.
The Clark County Sheriff’s Office said Pini Nou, 34, followed a student across the school parking lot and into the Hazel Dell school around 12:20 p.m. Wednesday. The student did not know him.
Police said Nou did not check in at the front office. Vancouver Public Schools spokeswoman Pat Nuzzo said it appeared the man entered the school through a door that opened from a classroom to the outside.
Jois Brownstein, the teacher in the classroom, said the student saw the man at a bus stop — the girl attends Running Start — and it wasn’t entirely clear whether the man was following her.
Once inside Brownstein’s classroom, the man did a “little half-circle” near a cluster of desks, she said. Brownstein said he seemed somehow off or possibly experiencing a mental health issue.
“I looked at him, because I’m a little surprised because someone’s smoking a cigarette in my classroom,” she said.
She tried to address him, she said, after which he gave a little laugh, then left.
“I locked my door and called security and that was it,” she said, adding he was in the room for less than a minute.
As security approached, Nou ran outside. The sheriff’s office said he pulled a ski mask over his face and became confrontational with security staff.
Nou ran from the school into a neighborhood to the southeast, and responding deputies found him in the backyard of a house in the 400 block of Northwest 98th Street.
The sheriff’s office said Nou was combative with deputies, and one deputy zapped him with a stun gun during the struggle, subduing him.
Paramedics treated Nou, and he was taken to Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center for minor injuries. Following his release from the hospital, the sheriff’s office said, he would be booked on suspicion of criminal trespass and first-degree burglary.
Brownstein said the reaction among her students was mixed: Some got over it pretty fast, while others were a bit rattled.
“They were very anxious for me to lock the door,” she said.
Parents received an automated phone call and email from the school district notifying them of the incident, Nuzzo said. Faculty and administration will discuss the security scare during the next monthly review of school operations, she added.
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UPDATE, 7:45 p.m., March 2: This article has been updated to include comments from the teacher in the classroom.
