Man Armed With Scissors Arrested Rummage Sale Shoppers Held In School Gym For An Hour

FOR THE RECORD: 8-6-2000 Headline wrong: A headline in Saturday’s Spokesman-Review incorrectly stated that a man was arrested after threatening suicide at a rummage sale and summer camp in the Spokane Valley. The man was taken to a hospital for mental evaluation.

A man armed with scissors temporarily shut down a rummage sale and summer camp in the Spokane Valley on Friday.

A 40-year-old man entered a classroom at St.

John Vianney Catholic School and threatened to kill himself with 8-inch scissors.

About 20 children were moved to a room at the opposite end of the school and 40 rummage sale patrons were sequestered in the school gymnasium for nearly an hour.

The move was a safety precaution and at no time were any of them in danger, sheriff’s patrol Sgt. Bill Beeman said.

School custodian Dean Loberg found the man in an upstairs classroom at about 9:30 a.m. Friday. The man had written “Everything is backwards” on a chalkboard.

Loberg called 911.

“He stated he wanted help and couldn’t think straight,” Beeman said.

A dozen sheriff’s deputies and Washington State Patrol troopers responded to the scene. Two deputies spent nearly an hour talking the man out from behind a desk.

Meanwhile, the rummage sale customers were kept in the gymnasium, where tables were piled with clothes.

“People were buying like crazy. There was nothing else to do,” said Tanny Sines of St. Maries, Idaho. She had come to the sale with her mother and daughter.

A hostage negotiator was en route when the man gave up the scissors at about 10:30 a.m.

The sheriff’s office declined to identify the man, who was taken to a hospital for mental evaluation, Beeman said. It’s unknown whether criminal trespassing charges will be filed.