Some parents at Cherrywood Elementary school in San Jose are not too happy with the San Jose Police Department. A homeless man was found peeping into a classroom window on Monday. And when school officials called police for help, they were told officers were too busy answering another higher priority call.
"Our police department didn't step up,"said school parent Stephanie Carrasco.
A janitor drove the homeless man off the campus. But a short time later, the same man came back and this time was found in the girls' bathroom.
"I was pretty freaked out and pretty stressed out because these are our children and they're supposed to try to keep our community safe and the fact that they didn't show up or they had other priorities and there's a strange man here," Carrasco said.
The school called the police again. This time they were told officers would be sent out. But the school district says the police never showed up.
"The thought that we could not get support when we needed it was very troubling," said Berryessa School District Supt. Will Ector. "I'm responsible for 8,000 kids. They're my number one priority,"
San Jose police say they called the school back and were told they were no longer needed. But the school district contends the police called back after everything was over.
They responded to the schools claims Wednesday. Watch that below:
"We never heard back, I didn't hear back from them from San Jose PD and no one showed up. I was told they did call back seeing if everything was okay, but it was quite a bit after the incident," Ector said.
But the homeless man was not done yet. He came back on the campus for the third time on Tuesday. This time, police officers came out and arrested someone they found walking around in a nearby neighborhood.
"All the shootings that are going on, bombings that are going on in the schools," Andrea Flores, a school parent, said. "Our kids are our priority. To us our kids are number one,"
Because the police did not bring the man they arrested back to the campus for identification purposes, the school district says it has no way of knowing whether the right man was arrested. Ector said he is working on bringing in two security officers to patrol Cherrywood Elementary for peace of mind.
Sgt. Jason Dwyer said it is not typical for police to bring every suspect by for a one-on-one ID. He also categorically denied that the department was unresponsive. In the end, he said, officers ended up finding the man and charging him with an unrelated felony, which in the end proves they were doing their job.
NBC Bay Area's Kris Sanchez contributed to this report.
