Arizona police Taser two parents as they try to enter locked-down school

Police fired a stun gun at two Arizona parents as they tried to force their way into a school that police had locked down after an armed man was seen trying to get on campus.

The parents were arrested, along with one other, as they tried to get to their children to protect them, authorities said. Officers in the Phoenix suburb of El Mirage used a Taser stun gun to stop two of them as they tried to help a man whose own handgun fell to the ground while he was being taken into custody.

It came nearly three months after hundreds of law enforcement officers in the small Texas city of Uvalde failed to act for more than an hour as a gunman killed two teachers and 19 students.

No shots were fired in the incident at Thompson Ranch elementary school, the school was not breached and no one was hurt, other than a woman taken to a hospital with stun gun injuries from officers who say they were trying to stop her from attacking them.

But the school was still on lockdown, meaning no one would be allowed on campus, according to the protocols police and the school district have set up. That was when upset parents demanded to be allowed in so they could find their children, and began confronting police, authorities said.

Chavez said a man began pushing to get past officers and as police were arresting him, a man and a woman who had also been confronting officers came to his aid. Officers used a stun gun to subdue them and they too were arrested. As the first man was being taken into custody, a gun fell to the ground.

The incident began at about 10.30am on Friday when school officials called police to report that a man, possibly armed with a gun, was trying to get into a locked school building. He could not get in and was chased off by staff before police from El Mirage and two other agencies arrived at the school, Chavez said.

Police later located the man who had triggered the lockdown. He was being evaluated late on Friday by mental health professionals, and a police statement said charges were pending.