A man was arrested yesterday (Tuesday) after reportedly pointing an object that observers initially thought might be a gun at Cunningham Park Elementary School students.
Vienna police were dispatched to the school around 12:51 p.m. in response to a report of a suspicious person described “as an older white male with no shirt, who possibly had a long gun and was pointing it at students,” the Town of Vienna Police Department said in a news release today (Wednesday).
The person who called in the report said they didn’t know whether the object was a toy gun, according to police.
“Upon arrival, officers talked to different sources who confirmed that no firearm was present and that the suspect picked up a metal object and pointed it at students,” VPD said. “He was last seen heading toward Cedar Lane.”
According to police, a man who fit the given description was later spotted bathing in the water fountain at the Vienna Town Green.
Apparently intoxicated, the man was arrested and identified as William Holland of no fixed address, police said. He has been charged with being drunk in public and brandishing within 1,000 feet of a school.
Police conducted a search of the man but didn’t find any weapons, the department says.
VPD says officers learned through a fingerprint search that the man was facing an indecent exposure charge in Alexandria. The city’s police department had a warrant out for him under the name “Mike Astor.”
According to VPD spokesperson Juan Vasquez, the man gave his name as William Holland to the officer who arrested him, but when his fingerprints were collected at the Fairfax County jail, the database matched them to the other name.
The Alexandria City Police Department didn’t immediately return FFXnow’s request for comment.
The man is currently being held on no bond at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. He has been barred from all Fairfax County Public Schools.
