An armed 30-year-old man was arrested at Leesburg High School on Thursday morning after a guardian spotted him walking through the campus.
The guardian reported the incident to the school’s resource officers, who are Leesburg Police officers, and 30-year-old Jabari Marquise Scott was placed under arrest a short time later.
Scott initially claimed his name was John M. Scott with a birthdate of Feb. 8, 1991. But a dispatcher told officers there was no record of anyone with that name and birthdate in Florida and he initially was detained for providing a false name to a law enforcement officer and for trespassing on school property, a Leesburg Police report states.
Officers then searched Scott and found a flare gun in his right-side waistband that had been painted black. The gun had a round metal piece attached to the barrel that extended it about three or four inches and contained a live .410-gauge shotgun shell ready to fire, the report says.
Officers also found an additional .410-gauge shotgun shell, nine rounds of .380-caliber ammunition, one 9mm round, one .223-caliber round and one 12-gauge shotgun slug shell in Scott’s right shorts pocket, the report says.
Scott also was wearing a black fanny pack around his waist that contained “multiple items of contraband.” Those included what appeared to be a multi-colored cigarette pack made of hard plastic that contained five small plastic Ziploc-style baggies containing a white powdery substance that field-tested positive for cocaine, a small glass vial with a blue top containing a substance that also tested positive for cocaine, another clear baggie containing an unidentified powdery substance and several other small empty baggies, the report says.
Scott told officers he took the items from his little brother because he didn’t want him to get caught with them. He then provided his real name and officers discovered he had multiple past felony convictions, the report says.
Scott, who lives at 1700 High St. in Leesburg, was placed under arrest and transported to the Leesburg Police Station for booking. He was later taken to the Lake County Jail and charged with giving false identification to a law enforcement officer, trespassing on school property with a weapon or firearm, carrying a concealed unlicensed firearm, two counts of possession of a weapon or ammunition by a convicted felon and possession of cocaine with intent to sell. He was being held on $43,000 bond and is due in court Sept. 21 at 8:30 a.m. to answer to the charges.
