15-year-old boy arrested, accused of lewd acts with child at Lake Elsinore school

A 15-year-old boy was arrested after walking onto a school campus and assaulting a child, deputies said. 

According to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, the 15-year-old boy was not a student of the school, nor did he have permission to be on campus. 

Deputies responded to Lakeland Village Elementary School in Lake Elsinore on Oct. 17 around 11:30 a.m. after staff members were alerted to an unknown person on school grounds. 

The school was immediately placed on lockdown. The suspect fled the area but was arrested a short distance away on Grand Ave. His arrest was captured on video. Witnesses say school officials chased the suspect and a neighbor joined in… holding him down till deputies arrived.

Detectives say the teen suspect committed a lewd act on a child, and they believe there are other victims. 

The school is investigating how the teen got on campus. Some parents say they are upset with the way the school handled the situation and want them to improve their communication. 

One parent told FOX 11 that he was notified of the incident through a phone app he doesn't have. 

"There needs to be somebody here to protect our schools. If they can't, then we'll pull them out, or we'll come here and protect them ourselves," said parent Jeremy Coons.

The Lake Elsinore Unified School District released a statement saying in part, "We worked as quickly as possible to gather the facts so that we could communicate in a timely manner with our families, knowing that the news of a school lockdown is unsettling for parents. From this situation, we are going to review our emergency protocols across the district because if there are any steps that we can take to increase safety, security and timely communication with our staff and families, then we want to identify and adopt these improvements."

The district will be holding a special board workshop on Oct. 27, where they say security will be discussed.