On a cold night in October, a Santa Barbara man snuck into a second-grade classroom at Montecito Union School and spent the night.

When an instructional aide opened the classroom at 8:15 in the morning, she found the 19-year-old man, sleepy, groggy, just waking up. He was also charging his phone in a classroom outlet, using a school charger.

Within 30 seconds, the assistant principal arrived, then the superintendent and principal followed within 90 seconds. At 8:18 a.m., MUS called the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office, but deputies were responding to something in Carpinteria and could not be there “for a while,” according to Anthony Ranii, the superintendent.

The incident roiled the campus community, raised questions about the authorities’ response time, and set into motion a series of changes intended to prevent the situation from happening again.

“I am not happy with the response time, but I am not unhappy with the first responders,” Ranii said.

Eventually, about an hour after the initial call, deputies arrested Jose Gonzalez, a man with about five aliases, authorities said, near Montecito Birnam Wood golf course. He was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor burglary, trespassing, and violation of probation. He had an outstanding warrant out for his arrest.

MUS responded swiftly, paying a security team $12,000 to create stronger security protections.

So, what happened on Oct. 29?

According to Ranii, the suspect snuck into the classroom the night before when the custodians were cleaning a different classroom. The janitors typically open two classrooms at a time, and Gonzales entered one of the open classrooms.

He slept on the floor. The next morning the aide found him.

“The unhoused person was not belligerent,” Ranii wrote in a letter to the Board of Trustees. “He was a non-English speaker, but using broken Spanish we were able to have him leave the classroom and exit the classroom and the school site. He left campus without incident, and he was outside the secure perimeter within 90 seconds. We accompanied him to the 6th grade parking lot.”

Eventually five MUS staff members, including two bilingual staff, arrived at the scene.

“We were talking with him outside our secure perimeter, asking him to wait for the authorities,” Ranii wrote. “He decided to walk away from the school on School House Road. I decided to follow at a safe distance (approximately 40 feet) to ensure that those walking to school would be safe.”

He said he followed him until about 8:35 a.m. to ensure that he didn’t interact with any families walking to school. School starts at 8:30 a.m.

Ranii, in his report to the board of Trustees, said that the sheriff was in the area about 8:47 a.m. searching for the person. They were at the school site at 9:15 a.m. By 9:45 a.m., the suspect was in custody, and the assistant principal, principal, and Ranii identified the individual, Ranii said in his report.

He was carrying a phone charger owned by the school in his pocket.

In an interview with Noozhawk, Raquel Zick, spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office, said that five units responded to the scene, but they did not go to the school first. The school first called to say that someone was in the classroom, then someone from the school called back to say the person was off campus.

Zick said they received three calls about the man walking on East Valley Road. She said it is not out of the ordinary for authorities to go first where the suspect is, rather than the school, where the original call was placed.

“There were three separate calls for service to track down a person who was on foot in the Montecito area,” Zick said. “He had shed some of the clothing he was wearing. He didn’t necessarily match the description from the classroom.”

Zick said authorities were able to piece all the information together and “effectively track this person down and arrest them. It was a successful apprehension of this person. They sought to apprehend the suspect instead of having an immediate presence on campus.”

She understands frustration with the situation.

“In those time spans when people are awaiting a response, it does seem like an eternity and that is understandable,” Zick said.

Ranii said that the students in the second-grade classroom did not enter the room to start the day but instead learned in the Nature Lab “while we did a safety sweep and cleaned the classroom as it had a strong odor.”

When complete the students went back to class, Ranii said.

The school made several changes after the incident, including a Safety and Security Assessment from outside experts, created two evening safety checks instead of one, prohibited janitors from listening to earphones and loud music during evening cleaning, and locked the public access gates overnight.

In addition, crews will only unlock classes that are actively being cleaned. Ranii said school officials also met with the Montecito Association and will work with them to support
to improve Sheriff responsiveness/staffing.

Ranii said he totally understands that it is the school’s job to keep kids safe when they are under their care. He called the incident a “scary moment,” but that they have already put more layers of security in place.” All students attended class that day after the incident and no families, he said, have expressed interest in pulling their kids from MUS.

“This was extremely unfortunate, but how can we improve?” Ranii said. “In 2024, all schools need to treat school safety as a top priority, and that’s what we are doing.”

Zick said that the suspect was not aggressive so it did not warrant a Code 3 response.

“There was lots of back-and-forth communication,” she said. “That doesn’t mean in the 45 minutes that passed that we weren’t tracking this person, and in this case, making a successful apprehension.”

The Sheriff’s Office sent all five cars from Montecito, Carpinteria and Summerland, along with two supervisors, to respond to the scene. She said the situation with unhoused individuals is not unique to Montecito.

“I think we see throughout the county, there are calls with parallel or similar issues,” Zick said. “It’s not uncommon that there are unhoused people that people stumble upon when they show up for work.”