Updated at 2:05 p.m. Friday: Revised to indicate that the armed person in Thursday's lockdown was actually a law enforcement officer.
An armed man seen in the parking lot of an Irving middle school on Thursday turned out to be a law enforcement officer serving a warrant for murder, Irving police said Friday.
"We want to inform everyone that there was never a threat to Austin Middle School," Irving police said Friday in a news release.
The school on Union Bower Road was locked down before classes started after a parent called 911 around 7 a.m. because she saw a man with a rifle and possibly a handgun in the school parking lot.
Police searched the school and did not find a suspect or a weapon, and the school was declared safe while a secondary search of the area was conducted.
The parent described the suspect as a man with a beard who was wearing a camouflage vest, Irving police spokesman Robert Reeves said.
That man turned out to be a member of a U.S. Marshals Service task force serving a warrant nearby for someone wanted out of Louisiana. The task force alerted police that it would be serving a warrant, but not that it would be staging its operation in the school parking lot, Reeves said.
The armed officer reported in the threat was dropped off at the school after the operation and was the only visibly armed person around at the time, Reeves said.
That's when the parent spotted him.
The subject of the warrant was found and arrested early in the morning, before the lockdown was declared, Reeves said.
At the time of the lockdown, Reeves said the department treated the threat as credible "based on the emotions and the descriptions the person gave to us," he said.
Around 8:30 a.m., Irving police tweeted that "the first search of the school and area revealed no suspect or weapon found." A second search began after that, police said.
"All students and staff are safe," Irving ISD said on Twitter, noting that there will be counselors at the school and an increased police presence for the rest of the week.
Students and staff were evacuated to Pierce Early Childhood School at 901 N. Britain Road.
Irving police thanked the parent for alerting them to the armed person, even if no threat ever materialized.
"We are appreciative of the parent that called in, and continue to remind people, 'If you see something, say something,'" police said in the news release.
