Fairway man charged for threatening police with gun, shooting at Highlands Elementary
On Friday afternoon, Joshua Eckrich got a frightening phone call: A friend was wondering if he had seen an email about an incident at Highlands Elementary School in Mission where his two children are enrolled.
“Clearly something was wrong based on his tone and an email going out,” Eckrich said.
Eckrich, who works on the Country Club Plaza, got to his car and made his way to Highlands Elementary School at 62nd Street and Roe Avenue.
Police were already there, responding to reports of gunfire somewhere near the school, at about 1:30 p.m.
On Saturday, Dylan Christopher Ruffin, 26, was charged with criminal discharge of a firearm at the school, in addition to other charges.
The incident began early afternoon Friday. After shots were heard outside the school, a resource officer investigating spotted a van in the parking lot that had been struck by gunfire and noticed that the school building had been shot at, said John Lacy, a spokesman for the Overland Park Police Department..
The shots fired prompted Highlands Elementary School to go on lockdown, with all students and staff confined inside the building.
Around 3 p.m., Eckrich, having learned that the school was deemed secure, was allowed to pick up his children, who were escorted outside the building by school staff. They had just arrived at his home in Fairway before hearing a torrent of police cars speeding up Mission Road.
As other parents were picking up their children, around 3:15 p.m., officers received two 911 phone calls from a home across the street from the school.
Officers had made contact with the homeowner. She was escorted out of the house and taken to a safe location while Ruffin, who was armed, remained inside.
“A lady comes out, advised her child had a firearm,” Lacy said on Friday. “Officers rushed over to the home. That’s when the gunfire was exchanged.”
Ruffin stepped out through the entrance of the house, located at the 4600 block of West 62nd Street, with a gun pointed at police officers, according to a statement from David Brown, chief of police for the Fairway Police Department.. Officers told Ruffin to drop his gun. When he continued pointing it at officers, they shot at him.
Ruffin is charged with three counts of aggravated assault against a law enforcement officer and criminal discharge of a firearm, all felonies. He was first taken to a hospital with an injury on Friday afternoon and later released to authorities, who took him to the Johnson County Adult Detention Center, where he is being held on a $500,000 bond.
The school response
Eckrich said his daughter was on the playground when shots were first heard. He said children were immediately ushered into the school building.
“Both district and city police were called,” said Mike Fulton, superintendent of the Shawnee Mission School District, in a letter to district parents. “They responded immediately and made sure that students and staff were safe.”
After believing that the situation was under control, the school coordinated with police to allow parents to pick up their children in what Fulton described as a “controlled environment.”
After gunfire broke out across the street, school officials again rushed to get people back to safety inside the school building.
“While dismissal was taking place, police engaged with an individual at a house across from the school,” Fulton’s letter said. “That engagement resulted in gunfire between that individual and police. We immediately brought everyone back into the school, until police announced that they had arrested that individual.”
Eckrich, a military veteran who served in Iraq in 2006 and 2007, both hailed and criticized the work of police responding to the scene.
“They engaged the suspect and did what they had to do and I’m proud and pleased that they did so, but I don’t hide criticism when criticism is warranted,” Eckrich said.
He questioned whether children should have been dismissed to their parents while a situation was going on across the street.
“They failed to secure the scene and started to release children to their parents and created another security issue,” Eckrich said.
Fulton said school and district staff responded appropriately.
“I want to emphasize that students, staff and parents were kept safe. Students and staff acted exactly as we have trained during our safety drills,” Fulton wrote in his letter.
Active investigation
On Saturday, crime scene investigators returned to the scene, investigating outside the house on 62nd Street.
Across the street at the elementary school, evidence markers were seen on a school window and workers from Lawrence Glass in Shawnee spent part of the day replacing two bullet-damaged windows.
Friday wasn’t the first time authorities have dealt with Ruffin.
In 2014, he was charged with obstructing an officer and criminal damage to property, both misdemeanors. He pleaded guilty to the obstruction charge while the criminal damage charge was dropped as part of a plea deal that had him serving 12 months of probation.
In 2012, he was charged with one count of felony possession of Oxycodone, a prescription opioid painkiller, and misdemeanor counts of possessing marijuana, synthetic marijuana and another prescription drug. He pleaded guilty to possessing marijuana as part of a plea deal. He served 12 months of probation.
In 2011, he was charged with misdemeanor property damage.
In each case, he listed the same Fairway address for his residence. He’s not listed as an owner of the residence, according to Johnson County property records.
Tammy Ljungblad contributed to this report.
This story was originally published March 2, 2019 at 12:54 PM.
