California: Castle View Elementary School teacher Linda Montgomery held hostage by angry parent

A Riverside elementary school was evacuated Tuesday when an angry parent barricaded himself in a classroom with 70-year-old female teacher. The hostage situation was at Castle View Elementary School, located on Shaker Drive near Century Avenue in the Canyon Crest area of the city.

Linda Montgomery

The teacher being held was identified by her daughter as Linda Montgomery, who has taught at the school for decades.

“She loves teaching,” said her daughter, Michelle Montgomery.

The school was placed on lockdown in the noon hour after the assault. All of the students have safely been evacuated and began releasing them to their parents after 1 p.m.

The parent entered the campus before 11:15 a.m. and punched a teacher. Riverside Fire Department officials said the victim was taken to Riverside Community Hospital for treatment.

Witnesses at the scene said the injured person appeared to have a bloody or broken nose.

“He’s not responding to our commands to come out so far,” Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback said. Witnesses did not report seeing any weapons on the man, police said.

ABC reported that family members of the suspect said he has a daughter in first grade at the school. They say he had some kind of breakdown in the morning and other family members took away his car keys, but he was able to get to the school anyway.

“He had a breakdown, and he relapsed again. That’s all, he’s not dangerous,” said Carl Jackson, who identified himself as the suspect’s uncle. “It’s just a matter of getting in there and talking to him, because we can talk to him. He’ll come out for us if police let us, before anything bad happen to him.”

Police said they did observe some smoke coming from the room at one point, but there were no indications of a device or a toxic material and the smoke later dissipated.

“When officers did respond, they noticed some type of smoke coming from the room,” said Railsback. “They don’t believe it was related to any type of explosive device. We don’t know.”

“It didn’t seem anything toxic that was harming anybody. We don’t know if it was even maybe a fire extinguisher. But it looks like it since dissipated. It didn’t seem to be too much of a concern other than it came from the room they were in.”