Police receive report of man with gun at Sedalia junior high school

SEDALIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Sedalia police say they arrested a man on suspicion of trespassing and making a terrorist threat Thursday after a report of a person armed with a gun on the Smith-Cotton Junior High School campus.

Police and school district security officers received reports of a suspicious and potentially armed person on the school's south parking lot, the Sedalia Police Department said in a news release. Police arrested Michael K. Moore, 42, but determined no gun was used, the release says. Sedalia police Commander David Woolery said it appeared Moore was having a mental health crisis.

Moore was booked into the Pettis County Jail, police said.

The school district wrote on its Facebook page that the campus was locked down after a 911 call of two suspicious men on the Katy Trail, one with a gun. A gun was found in a car used by the other man, but not on Moore, the district said. No students or staff were in danger, according to the post.

Sedalia Superintendent Steve Triplett said the man later identified as Moore ran up to food service workers telling them he was being chased by a man with a gun who turned out to be a man collecting cans.

Students and staff practiced lockdown protocols just last week, Triplett said.