Lockdowns Lifted On Watsonville Schools; Person In Custody

WATSONVILLE, CA — E.A. Hall Middle School and Mintie White Elementary School were both briefly placed on "precautionary" lockdown Tuesday afternoon until a person was taken into custody, the Watsonville Police Department said in a statement.

Police asked community members at 1:30 p.m. to avoid the area as "police activity" was underway around the two campuses. The lockdown was lifted a half-hour later after Daniel Smith was arrested, The Pajaronian reported.

Smith was spotted Tuesday afternoon on East Lake Avenue and fled through a neighborhood before he was arrested in the backyard of a home, The Pajaronian reported.

Officials were conducting surveillance to find Smith a day earlier when they spotted his brother, Thomas Smith, the paper reported. Thomas Smith fled officers with a loaded gun under his seat and was arrested after a foot chase, The Pajaronian reported.

Read more at The Pajaronian.

— Patch Editor Courtney Teague contributed to this report