Johnson County man appears in court on charges in shooting outside Highlands Elementary
A 26-year-old Fairway man made his first court appearance Monday afternoon on charges stemming from a shooting outside the Highlands Elementary School last week.
During the shooting, bullets pierced a classroom window, struck an area near the roof and damaged a van parked in the school lot.
Dylan Christopher Ruffin appeared before Johnson County Magistrate Judge Daniel Vokins on video from the Johnson County Central Booking facility. Johnson County deputies had wheeled Ruffin into the room in a wheelchair for his appearance.
An attorney for Ruffin waived the reading of the charges. Judge Vokins set a preliminary hearing for 10 a.m. March 14 and ordered Ruffin to be held on a $500,000 bond.
Ruffin faces three counts of aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer and criminal discharge of a firearm at the school at 6200 Roe Avenue in Mission.
The incident began early Friday afternoon when shots were heard outside the school by teachers monitoring first-graders playing on the playground, district spokesman David Smith said.
Students were quickly ushered inside, and the school went into lockdown. All students and staff were confined inside the building.
Third graders, who had left their classrooms to begin their own recess, were redirected back to their classrooms. When one class returned to its room, glass was visible on the floor.
A bullet hole was discovered when the blinds were pulled away from the window, Smith said. Students were brought back out of that classroom, and police already on the scene investigated, he said.
During this time, a resource officer discovered that a van in the parking lot had been struck by gunfire. The vehicle had two windows shattered and a hole through the front window.
The school was later deemed secure and parents were allowed to pick up their children. As parents were picking up their children about 3:15 p.m., police received two 911 phone calls from a house across the street.
The homeowner was escorted out of the house, and she advised police that her son had a firearm. When officers rushed over, Ruffin allegedly stepped through the front door with a gun pointed at officers, according to a statement from Fairway Police Chief David Brown.
Police told Ruffin to drop his gun. When he didn’t comply, officers shot at him, Brown said.
Ruffin was injured and was taken to a hospital before being booked into the county jail.
Police would later find a third location where a bullet struck school property, Smith said. Gunfire struck windows covering a space above the roof of the school library’s exterior.
“It’s a space above the library,” Smith said. “That’s not a space where students or staff would have access.”
The district provided counseling services for Highlands Elementary students this week, one board member said on Twitter.
Shawnee Mission School District board member Heather Ousley thanked both district and municipal police officers “who worked to secure the suspect.”
“What they never could have prepared me for as a school board member was how much you care about each of the 27,000 students in your district, and how any threat to those students would come as a punch to the gut,” Ousley posted over the weekend. “I want to commend the educators, staff, parents and students who responded so very well under the most stressful of circumstances.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2019 at 1:15 PM.
