Local school in lockdown during police foot chase

Quick law enforcement decision-making and a well-placed camera system might have saved hundreds of Polson lives at around lunchtime last week.

Linderman Elementary School’s regular lunchtime student body was busy on the campus playground, while staff and Polson School Superintendent Linda Reksten attended to business inside.

Simultaneously, Derrick Pluff, 28 of Polson, who had “precautions” and an active arrest-warrant for felony drugs and theft charges made eye-contact with Polson law enforcement officers on the 300 block of Third Avenue East in Polson and bolted toward the school, Polson Police Chief Wade Nash said.

Pluff threw his bike to the side and ran down the road,” Nash said.

And that’s when Nash called for the elementary school to lock down.

Still at lunch, the Linderman student body was preparing to return to their classrooms when the call came in.

Teachers and other staff members quickly ushered the children inside school walls and locked all the doors.

A school camera system recorded the event.

The police officer-and-suspect foot-chase went sideways when the pursuing officer lost sight of Pluff, Nash said.

Pluff disappeared as law enforcement officers from several additional agencies converged on the area in pursuit of Pluff.

Ultimately, it was the Linderman Elementary School camera system that led to Pluff’s eventual arrest.

As his law enforcement comrades swirled the neighborhood looking for Pluff, Nash went into the school and viewed the camera recording.

“The video footage showed that he came on to school ground,” Nash said.

Though the video showed Pluff running onto the campus, it did not show where he went.

So Nash went outside to the spot he last saw Pluff and looked around for a possible direction of travel.

Nash said that after he looked around for a moment, he looked up into the tree he stood under and spotted Pluff hiding among the branches.

“The cameras were huge. He was on school grounds,” he said.

Nash said that suspect behavior is unpredictable, and that Pluff could have done a host of things, including running into the school building.

But thanks to the swift action involved in the lockdown and the cameras that pointed to the suspect’s immediate location, a potential school-involved police take-down trauma was averted.

Once arrested Pluff was transported to Lake County Detention Center in Polson and charged with three counts of felony criminal endangerment.